H.M.S. COCKEREL

Scott, our…'

Bloody Hell, what is he, he flummoxed?

'Our purser. Le commissaire de marine? Vin, brandy, clothing? Les vetements? La cuisine, the pay… le rente? Purser. Bursar?'

Buonaparte raised one eyebrow and spoke to the dragoon.

'M'sieur, ze colonel say vote… purser, 'e wear les culottes rouges… ze breeches red? Marine de France, aussi, culottes rouges.' The captain posed suspiciously. 'Officeur de la marine de France. 'E s'ink votre… Scott?… eez peut-etre ze traitre… traitor, un officeur royaliste de Toulon!'

'Mister Scott? French?' Lewrie gawped, hands on his hips and forcing himself to laugh. 'Lord, that's a good'un, that is. Lads, do ya hear that? This soldier thinks our purser, Mister Scott here, is a French officer!' He clapped a hand on de Crillart's shoulder as if to lay claim to him.

'Haw, that's is a good'un, Mister Lewrie, sir,' Cony barked with his own feigned amusement, catching his drift, and nudging the others to play along. ' 'Oy, lads… 'Old Nip-Cheese' a Froggie?' They began to titter.

'We do have men among us whom you might consider French, sir,' Lewrie confessed, ignoring Spendlove's startled gasp at his elbow. 'We recruited in the Channel Islands. Guernsey, Alderney. Some of our best sailors come from there. The British Channel Islands, mind. Aye, they parlez-vous, some. But they're British tars. Well, we've four Spanish survivors with us. But the Royalists at Toulon are all soldiers. All the seamen left, weeks ago.'

'Je ne sais pas… vos bursars wear rouge?'

'Any damn' thing they want, they're not really Navy officers,' Lewrie lied, striking a breezy air. 'Aye, red's their colour. Waist-coat's red, too. Plain blue coat, with cloth-covered buttons…'

'Say somezing… M'sieur Bursar Scott,' the dragoon demanded. 'Parlez-vous francais?'

De Crillart shook his head in the negative, shrugging, with a hopeless grin at the dragoon officer.

'Somezing in English, m'sieur?'

'Yes, Mister Scott,' Lewrie prompted as well, turning to him in desperation. 'Say something in Royal Navy, Mister Scott.'

De Crillart frowned, cocking his head to one side. It was his life he held in his hands, and the lives of his gunners, as well. And Alan's… once they found he'd been lying like a rug, and resented it.

'Arrh, matey,' Charles pronounced carefully. 'Aye, aye, cap'um.'

Alan stifled such a monumental snort of stupefaction, he felt his sinuses were about to burst Where the hell'd he learn that, he wondered? And why'd he dredge it up now¹? God, what a

honid choice!

'You may have a bit of bother understanding him, you see,' Alan sped to explain, trying to keep a straight face, no matter how hellish dangerous it was. 'Mister Scott is a real Scot. A Highland Scot. Can't understand him meself, half the time, all his 'arrrhhin' and 'burrin.' '

'God-damn-r'right, cap'um,' de Crillart added. 'Blud-dy.' Oh, God, don't gild the lily, not when…! Alan winced. He was interrupted by the most wondrous sound he'd ever heard in his entire life-the sudden spatter of musketry! Everyone jerked their heads to the source, to espy a rank of shakoed heads on the tall bluff above the beach, on the coast road. Lance tips winked beyond on the hill, bared sabres flashed, and a trumpet sounded. They wore goldish yellow jackets with white facings. Spanish cavalry, by God!

Bullets spanged off the shingle, sparks erupted crisp as struck gun-flints, horses reared and neighed, and men cried out in alarm, to arm themselves or to mount quickly.

Buonaparte and his aides mounted. Lewrie looked longingly for his sword; the bastard still had it. The dragoon captain reached for the hilt of his sabre. Lewrie shoved him, punching him in the face.

'Runnforritt!' he screamed, bolting away, dragging Spend-love by the elbow. 'This wayy!' as he headed for shelter under the bluffs up the cove, under the guns of the cavalrymen. His unshod right foot took terrible punishment on sharp-edged stones and gravel, every lumpy rock he stubbed on made him wince. But it was better than a bullet in the back, or a sword cut. 'Run, damn yer eyes! Run!' he panted.

There were shrieks, as a lancer got his tip into the back of a fleeing sailor, another piteous cry of ' Madre de Dios, noo, ahhhl….' that ended in a rabbity screech as a Spanish bombardier was hewn down by a dragoon's sword, cut open from belly to breastbone. And French cries, music to Lewrie's ears, as men were spilled from their saddles by ball, or stirrup-dragged by panicked chargers over the rough beach.

They reached the cliffs, gasping with effort. Lewrie turned to see the French cantering south, in fairly good order, heading for the far side of the arrow-shaped bluff below the beach, where there was a way up and off; steeper than the one they'd descended. He spotted Lieutenant Colonel Buonaparte on his dapple-grey, patiently waiting as his lancers thundered up the draw past him, braving long-range musket fire as his dragoons formed an open-order vedette to screen the retreat.

Buonaparte made his grey rear, stuck his arm in the air to wave the captured sword. He was smiling, damn his eyes!

'I'll get it back, you bastard!' Lewrie howled in his loudest quarter-deck voice, jabbing a finger at the sword. 'Je prendre mon…! One day, I'll find you! Je trouvez-vous! Je prendre de vous, mon…'

Damme, what's Frog for 'sword'?

'Espece de salaud!' he roared instead, his voice echoing off rocks and hills. 'Va te faire foutre!'

Scabbarded, Buonaparte flipped the sword so the hilt was in his fist-raised it to his face in mock salute, laughed as his horse did another impressive rear. He may have had no English, and Lewrie might not have had anything close to fluent French-but he thought he understood well enough. With a saw at the reins, the colonel was gone in a moment, up the draw and out of sight.

'Seflores, pronto!' a Spanish cavalry officer directed, skidding his mount to a sand-strewing halt near them. 'Ingles? We go! Muy pronto! Darse! Hurry up!'

Not another language lesson, not two in one day, Lewrie sighed. The officer kicked an elegantly booted foot out of the near-side stirrup, reached down to offer him a hand as his men trotted up to aid the rest with spare French mounts, whose owners lay crumpled on the sands, or the mounts of Spanish soldiers who'd been spilled trying to rescue them. Alan hoisted his foot, reached for the saddlehorn, and hung on as the officer spurred his charger back up the draw to the Hieres road.

'A minute sooner,' he muttered ungraciously beside his saviour. 'Just a bloody minute sooner, thankee very much!'

Nothing could have spared him the shame of losing his ship, of course. But to see that swaggerin' little bastard ride off with his sword in his hands…

His very honour!

VI

Hic portus inquit mihi territat hostis has

aeies sub nocte refert, haec versa Pelasgum

terga vides, meus hic ratibus qui pascitur

ignis

.

Lo! Here the enemy is affrighting our

harbour, and here beneath the cover of

night he renews the battle, and here,

see! the backs of the Pelasgians in rout;

this fire that devours the rafts is mine.

– Valerius Flaccus

Argonautica, Book II, 656-59