Sea of Grey

Halifax, it being the most spacious. Christopher Cash- -man was the only one of them who sipped cold breakfast tea from a china cup, looking impatient to get his troops ashore, whilst the two majors, and the adjutant, a young sprog of a Captain by name of Sellers, and a nephew of Ledyard's, Lewrie had learned, indulged in a decanter of claret.

'My word, what sort of 'sneakers' the Navy takes in, these days,' Captain Blaylock tittered, turning his head to share the laugh with the others.

Lewrie's neck began to burn; to be compared to a 'sneak,' one of a carousing crew who didn't keep up his alcoholic intake at the same rate as the rest, and feigned his participation! When, by God, he had kept up with the best of 'em in his youth! Still could, he was sure.

Blaylock was a sour little stick of a man, a greying minnikin, as spare and reedy as Commodore Horatio Nelson, though possessed of a much deeper voice from one so lean. He wore a short, tightly curled tie-wig even in this heat, his face and hands tanned woody-brown from thirty years of sea duty, and a complexion flushed with rosacea or some such rash; perhaps too much drink, Lewrie uncharitably thought, asking himself if the entire West Indies Fleet was solely and utterly peopled by hard drinkers.

'We've sent ashore for orders, Lewrie,' Captain Blaylock said, as he waved-no, shooed!-Lewrie to a wing-back chair. 'Asking when and where General Maitland wishes us landed, and in what order.'

'Can't clutter up the piers,' Ledyard Beauman commented. 'Make all sorts of confusion. Take our time, hey? Not 'til needed.'

'What poor excuses for quays this harbour boasts are too busy already,' Captain Blaylock added. 'But what can one expect from the idle French. Good enough for them, I s'pose. You'll hold all of your boats, Lewrie, 'til we tell you when and where to come fetch and land.'

'Tell Maitland what we've brung,' Ledyard opined, legs stretched out, and all but resting on his spine in his chair, his glossy boots that rose above his knees, dragoon fashion, gleaming. 'Know best what he needs, first. Artillery or shot… loose powder… cartridges?'

Lewrie caught Cashman's frown of disapproval, no matter it was carefully veiled in the presence of his 'betters.'

'In my experience at Toulon, sirs, I'd imagine that cartridges for the troops already here would best suit,' Lewrie blandly stated. 'If not at the quays, then there are several stretches of beach, would serve the purpose. Cartridges, pre-bagged powder for his artillery… one company could be employed to pile and tote, then guard-'

'At that debacle, were you?' Captain Blaylock snapped. 'What a bloody muddle, it was.'

'Aye, I was, sir. Were you, as well?' Lewrie asked.

'No, I was not, sir,' Blaylock said with a petulant little moue. 'Utterly ruined by the timidity of our so-called allies, the Spanish, by putting too much trust in the French Royalists. Admiral Hood was… hah! Hood-winked!'

'Good'un, sir! Capital!' Ledyard Beauman haw-hawed.

'Hood-winked,' Captain Blaylock repeated, so taken with his jape that he could not resist, 'by gasconading boasts of fealty from French anti-Jacobins, was the way I heard tell it. The Dons' admiral, ready to trade fire with Hood over who held the right to command? Lost out and sailed away. And not six months later took hands with the Frogs, against us! Pah!'

'Out-gunned, out-manned, and under-supplied, though, sir,' Alan Lewrie pointed out after the growls of past betrayal and prejudice had subsided. 'Generals Dugommier and Bonaparte held the high ground and all the cards.'

'Oh, tosh!'

'Much the same terrain, when you look at it,' Cashman piped up, in a cagey sort of voice. 'A seaport with a small perimeter of level ground… surrounded by heights. Too few troops to push out into the countryside 'thout getting cut to ribbons, and outnumbered nearly ten to one. Too few troops to defend a larger perimeter. Too few guns, at the moment, to break a determined assault, sirs?'

Lewrie allowed himself a tiny grin of agreement at the stress that Cashman used; were he this General Maitland, he was certain that ammunition and more field guns would be his greatest demands. Now!

And yes, now that Kit had brought it up, Lewrie realised that a strong comparison could be made between Toulon and Port-Au-Prince; it explained the fey feeling he had experienced whilst ghosting shoreward, that prickle of wariness and uncertainty. The situation was much the same, too, with a British force surrounded, almost besieged, by enemy troops in much greater numbers. Did it turn out the same, was there to be a massacre of the innocents, as had happened when Hood had quit the place, and the Republican French soldiers had waded out into the water to shoot and bayonet the thousands who could not find room aboard the departing ships…?

He gave himself an involuntary shake, wishing he had taken the offer of a drop of something, after all. For certain, he was suddenly glad that he would be shot of the place, once the stores were landed, and Proteus could get out to sea to serve in the blockade.

'Samboes don't have guns!' Ledyard quibbled. 'Most of 'em are armed with cane- knives. Few muskets… few shoes, wot?'

'Our artillery will cut them down in waves, like reapin' cane,' Captain Sellers chortled.

'Never even get in musket range,' Major Porter added, 'when the grape and cannister'll lay 'em out long before.'

'Why we brought along caltrops,' Ledyard Beauman boasted. 'It was Cashman's suggestion, wasn't it?'

'Caltrops?' Captain Blaylock enquired, peering at Cashman. 'Scrap metal, ten pence nails and such, sir,' Colonel Cashman explained with a shrug of modesty. 'Colonel Beauman has the right of it… very few of 'em are shod. Take two and bend 'em together, so however it lands, a couple of points always face up, sirs. Strew 'em by the hundreds in the long grass before a position, even if a clear field of fire's been cut, and they'll tramp right over 'em before they see 'em. Even a Cuffy's horny hoof can't take that. Lame 'em, take 'em out of the fight… die of lockjaw days later, and take even more t'tend 'em. Brought enough for our own use, and I know that General Maitland had his quartermasters on Jamaica scour the countryside for scrap iron. Sure t'be umpteen thousands of 'em, cased up and waitin' to be landed, soonest. Slows 'em up somethin' wondrous, sirs.'

'E'en through flimsy, worn-out shoes!' Ledyard hooted. 'Gad! Think o' L'Ouverture, hoppin' about in his fancy boots after that!'

'Ooh, merci, ooh sacre bleu, ooh massahl' Captain Sellers playacted in a slurred slave accent, dancing his feet on Blaylock's fancy rugs and shrilling in 'pain,' which made all but Lewrie and Cashman double over with laughter. 'Tak' eet out,' I be a goood niggah!'

'You do not find it amusing, Captain Lewrie?' Blaylock asked, once the impersonation had paled.

'L'Ouverture and his tag-rag troops have defeated everyone on the island, sir… or so my advisories from Admiralty inform me. I doubt things'll be quite so easy. They never are, unfortunately.

'And, long as L'Ouverture fights us, he's supported by France, recognised by the Directory in Paris as a patriot, sir. To them, and to a great many people in Saint Domingue. They're better equipped and armed than we suspect, too, sir. From Hugues, down on Guadeloupe, and from the Americans. They're beginning to make decent muskets and-'

'Oh, rot, sir!' Captain Blaylock said with a sniff of humour. 'We've the whole coast bottled up, with the cork hammered home! Not a row-boat could land supplies. No, the Samboes are fighting with what little they've gleaned from the pre-war garrisons, and there's little mineral wealth here, not enough to make iron or steel, nor the ingredients for even halfway decent powder… lead for shot… Before this war began, the rich merchant traders at Rochefort, L'Orient, and Brest preferred selling manufactured goods here, and blocked any attempt to make none but the simplest things, locally.'

'Good rap, and they crack,' Ledyard Beauman said, nodding with as much sagacity as he could muster. 'Nought t'fall back on.'

'Then how have they maintained their army this long, sir?' Kit Cashman had to ask him. 'How has Rigaud and his faction done so, and the grands blancs up at Cape Francois? Good reason for my troops t'be landed as soon as possible, Captain Blaylock… and for old Lewrie to get back out to sea to add to your