Troubled Waters

'Cheese, oui…plus tard. Later,' Papin rasped from a corner of his mouth, looking like an actor whose grand soliloquy had been interrupted and ruined by an unruly drunk in the cheap seats.

'Au revoir, Capitaine Papin,' Lewrie said, not sure whether to applaud, or laugh. ' 'Til we meet again. A tout a l'heure.'

With a final, broad obscene gesture, Papin went to the entry-port and scampered down the battens and man- ropes as agile as an ape.

'See him back to his boat, Mister Urquhart, and recall our men,' Lewrie ordered. 'And have someone swab… that, up.'

'Secure from Quarters, sir?' Lt. Adair, the Second Officer, asked.

'Half the quarterdeck nine-pounders, and the carronades, aye,' Lewrie decided. 'I don't see any boats as large as Papin's out this morning, so the swivels, and muskets, would suit just as well.'

'There do seem to be a fair number in the offing, Captain,' Lt. Adair pointed out.

'Christ, we stop and search 'em all, we'll be at this 'til sundown,' Lewrie said with a scowl. 'No, we'll not waste our time on 'em. We'll hunt up Argosy and Erato first, and get the lay of the land from their captains, before we try on anything else. After all,' he said with a chuckle, 'they're the ones t'do the stopping and searching. We are here t'back them up.'

'Odd fellow, this Papin, sir,' Lt. Adair commented, as close as he could come to initiate a discussion of what had just transpired. 'I… pardons, sir, but I would not trust him with much. He's French!'

'Well, as Commodore Ayscough and Captain Charlton told me last night, Mister Adair,' Lewrie responded, quite pleased with his initial dealings with the French fishermen, 'a great deal of useful information is had from the locals, once cordial relations are established by dint of paying good prices for their catches, then for their smuggled goods. The old Directory of Five in Paris, now Bonaparte, are bankrupting the country with their endless wars upon the rest of Europe. Their trade with the rest of the world is cut to the bone… our doin', that… and, I doubt ev'ry Frog is in love with the Revolution. This Papin, some of his fellow captains, may prove extremely informative.'

Some shillings here, a guinea or so there, and these impoverished Frogs 'II most-like sell their dead mothers' hair! Lewrie cynically thought; fed up with war and shortages… sons conscripted, or already dead or crippled on battlefields from here to the Alps… why wouldn't they play spy, if there's some money in it, and get a bit o' their own back on the damned fools in Paris?

He was quite pleased with himself, all but rocking on the balls of his feet and whistling a merry tune. Oh, perhaps Papin couldn't deliver the best information, but surely he could come through on the wine, cheese, eggs, fresh-baked baguettes and boules… the bourbon whisky? If not Papin, some other of these fishermen, in almost daily contact with British warships, could. A cornucopia of fresh seafood, surely!

Newspapers! Lewrie thought of a sudden, feeling remiss that he had not mentioned them. French newspapers, half lies though they might be, could still provide a treasure trove of information; mostly unintentinally, for not every pa-per could be pored over by government censors.

'Uhm, sir…,' Lt. Adair spoke up again, all but muttering confidentially, 'I noted that, whilst that Papin fellow was doing his rant and dance, he, well… from the first moment he came aboard, he kept darting rather shrewd eyes about our ship. Counting our guns and such? And, we haven't seen a single other fishing boat as large as his quite this far out near the mouth of the Gironde. Perhaps there are others, but… why would this fellow dare the blockade, sir? Might Papin be spying for his own Navy, sir? Or, passing information to us as quick as he passes observations to shore? Playing both ends against the middle?'

'Oh, fu…!' Lewrie began to blurt with a yelp of dismay, but quickly substituted 'Mine arse on a band-box!' instead. The son of a bitch was spyin on me? he had to recognise.

'Didn't notice his demeanour,' Lewrie huffed, 'and thankee for keepin' your own eyes on him, Mister Adair. And, for your suspicions. Papin may be only the first middlin'-sized boat we've come across. It may be that others sail out this far on a regular basis. We're so new t'these waters, we've no idea, at present. We find Erato or Mischief, one of the cutters or sloops, and speak their captains, we'll have a better idea of what t'look out for… and who… Whom, rather.'

'Well, there is that, sir,' Adair replied, unsure whether to be eased of his suspicion, or not.

'Rather like Mister Winwood and his fear of where the driftwood logs lurk on the tides hereabouts, Mister Adair,' Lewrie tried to make a jest of it. ' 'Til he's secure in his mind, he'll spend all night on deck, lookin' out-board for ship-killin' trees.'

Adair doffed his hat and returned to his duties, leaving Lewrie to pace the length of the quarterdeck nettings and railings, hands in the small of his back, head down, and his neck burning in embarrassment.

Spied on? he chid himself; just let the bastard aboard t'see any thing he wished? Gawd, which o' these Frogs can ye trust? This whole endeavour could turn out t'be a rare shitten business!

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

T he safe, and navigable, outermost reaches of the Gironde river estuary measured about twelve miles across on a line drawn from Pointe de la Coubre, the tip of a narrow, hook-shaped peninsula on the north shore, an appendage to a clenched-fist larger peninsula whose Atlantic face was labelled the Cote Sauvage-which Lewrie took as auspicious-to a seaside village south of Pointe de Grave on the southern Atlantic coast named Soulac sur Mer.

The south shore peninsula narrowed and bent back to the nor 'east at Pointe de Grave, near another coastal village called Le Verdon sur Mer, which actually lay on the inner river bank. From Pointe de Grave to the north shore, and the small town of St. Georges de Didonne just a mile or so south of the larger town of Royan, lay the narrows of the Gironde, which was only about three miles across; a short row for a determined boat crew, or an even shorter sail.

Temptingly beyond those narrows, the Gironde widened considerably, remaining deep and six miles across, only narrowing slightly until it reached the long and skinny river aits that Rear-Admiral Lord Boxham had mentioned, near Pauillac and Blaye. Any number of French warships or merchant vessels could be moored below those Pointe de Grave narrows, but as to the getting to them, or even sneaking a ship's boat up the river to spy them out, it just didn't look like it was do-able…

'Now in King Louis the Fourteenth's day, sir,' Mr. Winwood said in his usual bleak manner, 'the key fort guarding the river was on the eastern bank, 'bout twelve or thirteen miles up-river, ah… here, at Saint Fort sur Gironde. One might suppose they deemed fortifications by Le Verdon sur Mer, the tip of Pointe de Grave, and Saint Georges de Didonne too vulnerable to armed landings. Now, though… my word!'

Keeping a chaste three miles offshore as they cruised down the north bank past La Grande Cote, St. Palais sur Mer, and to within sight of Royan in case some monstrous 42-pounder coastal guns might lurk in the forests and bleak fields, they had not seen all that much sign of military preparations. They had not been fired upon… yet… Though, as they neared St. Georges de Didonne, they could finally espy a stout pile of stonework sited about halfway between the village and the town of Royan. It appeared to be no more than one hundred yards long overall, a place formed in a shallow, three-sided U, with the crenellations that served as gun- ports no more than sixteen or twenty feet above the shoreline; but, with an even lower water battery mounting lighter guns to deter an assault by boats at the foot of its centre face.

'I count only four openings atop the walls for heavy guns along the walls… well, four per face, sir,' Lt. Urquhart pointed out. 'It might be open on its land face.'

'But, a landing-party would have to go ashore west of Royan,' Lewrie replied, peering intently through his day glass, 'then stumble their way to the fort, and, is Royan garrisoned, they might run into a stiff fight before they ever got to musket range of their objective.'

It didn't help Lewrie's lingering hang-over, or his wariness of what might lay hidden, that the Sailing Master's