Troubled Waters

Then, perhaps gulled like one of Clotworthy Chute's newly come heirs, or haying the entire French defensive plan laid before him like Moses' first peek at the Commandments, he would actually have to plan a complicated operation… with his head on the chopping block did it go awry!

Oh, won't this be just bags o 'fun! he sarcastically thought as he clinked glasses with Ayscough; should've kept me bloody gob stopped! What was Ithinkin'? This is more Twigg's game than mine. Sortin' fact from fiction. Christ. Don't know if I'm bright enough for it!

Another realisation struck him, right after that doubt. Well, two realisations, really. The first was that, whenever in his life, be it in his personal life or his naval career, he had felt sly-boots and clever, Dame Fortune usually woke from her nap and came down from Mount Olympus to kick him firmly in the fundament.

The second was that he would have to make nice of a sudden with Capitaine Jules Papin, and that might be just too horrid to contemplate.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

D'ye trust any of the fishermen ye run across?' Lewrie asked of Commander Nathaniel Hogue some days later, and finding it remiss of him to have served with the younger man in the Far East, yet never learned his Christian name 'til then. 'This Papin fellow, for instance?'

'Oh, him!' Hogue said with a wry chuckle. 'Frankly, sir, I am surprised he hasn't crammed a dozen local whores aboard his boat, and pimped them out to us on a day-rate. Papin is a thorough rogue, in my humble opinion. Rogue enough to sell information, at any rate. And… so far, what little he's grudgingly related to me, or the cutters, has proven true. Mind now, Captain Lewrie,' Hogue cautioned, 'I only speak of shilling revelations, not gold. Lieutenants Bartoe, Shalcross, and Umphries and I hold much the same opinion of M'sieur Papin, and where his loyalties lie… which is in personal profit.'

Such a confident young man, Lewrie thought, recalling the last time he'd served with Hogue, when the lad had been a somewhat shy and diffident cully, a tad naive of the ways of the world, and straight as a die. Now, though, after years of service, and 'on his own bottom,' Hogue was as chirpy as a magpie, and just about as sure of himself. In those days, when Hogue had contracted the Pox from some Chinese whore, he'd blushed and stammered and skulked in shame like a pregnant nun… Damme, was la bad influence on him, back then? Lewrie asked himself; most-like, aye.

'I've something in mind, sir,' Lewrie told him over glasses of cold tea in Savage's great-cabins; late summer in the Bay of Biscay was warm days and muggy seaside nights, just enough so to make the cold tea refreshing. 'Do we gather enough information to improve our odds, we might have a chance to reduce the battery on Pointe de Grave, and may even convince Lord Boxham to bring some of his 'liners' inshore to help take the fort cross the river, too. The biggest snag, o' course, will be what forces the French maintain hereabouts, and where; what weight of artillery we really face, and how quickly the local garrison could march to counter us. May not come off, but…'

'Oh, finally, sir!' Hogue crowed, rocking boyishly on his chair with a hand clasping a raised knee. 'We've spent weeks and weeks just staring at that new battery as it is being erected, at last being allowed to fire upon it… well, to land, take it, and slight it would just be delightful.'

'Just watching it being built?' Lewrie asked, puzzled. 'How so?'

'Well, sir…' Hogue reddened slightly, and lost his buoyant airs. 'Far be it from me to say anything uncomplimentary, or insubordinately, of a senior officer, but…'

'Don't know why not,' Lewrie cynically scoffed, ' 'tis usually a hellish-good relief.'

'Uhm, in that case, sir, since you put it that way,' Hogue said in a soft voice, all but peering squint-a-pipes in the dark corners of Lewrie's quarters to see if there might be a witness to his disloyalty, 'Commander Kenyon said our chiefest role was stopping commerce entering or departing the Gironde, sir. That we were not to risk our vessels by entering the possible gun-range of the Saint George fort, or dare to go East of Point Grave. We could stop and search as many fishing boats as we wished, and ask of doings ashore, but that was to convince the French of the impossibility of any imports or exports, and, by not confronting their guns, or giving them any chance to do us harm, foment in French minds a notion of our… invincibility, and inevitability.'

'Ahum… I see,' Lewrie slowly drawled, a dark frown forming on his face. 'Well, such might be decent goals, but… once the battery on the point is finished, such orders and cautions would force us to give it a wide berth, too. Convincing the Frogs that, do they build a set of batteries up the north shore, we could be frightened out beyond Pointe de la Coubre, or three miles to seaward of Soulac sur Mer!'

'Assuming, as we have, sir, that the French possess fourty-two-pounder guns in sufficient number,' Hogue pointed out. 'The Commander may have decided that the few men we have aboard our ships could make no impression on the Saint George fort, for certain, and could only delay the completion of the one on Point Grave… and, were we repulsed with casualties, fill the French with confidence.'

'Defeats tend t'do that,' Lewrie mused aloud. 'If I thought the Frogs had four or five thousand troops they could whistle up on short notice, I'd be much of the same mind. But, so far we don't know just how dangerous a landing could be. And, we must find out.'

'Just like the old days, isn't it, Captain Lewrie?' Hogue asked with a cheerful grin. 'Chasing the French and Lanun Rovers from the Malacca Straits to Canton, and back… and but slowly knitting all of the clues together?'

'Very much like, aye,' Lewrie agreed. 'I will speak Erato sometime this afternoon. For the nonce, I'd like you to pass word to our cutter captains, and tell them to begin pressing, cajoling, and bribing the fishermen even sharper. And, I would very much like for them to discover for me just what lies behind Le Verdon sur Mer. The port, the bay by the point, and that cove below the village.'

'Uhm, if I may make a suggestion, sir,' Hogue said. 'But, we've come to name places more Anglicised, to avoid confusion. We say Point Grave, 'stead of Pointe de Grave, and say it like a churchyard grave. Verd'n… Saint George, 'stead of all that de Didonne flummery. Soo-Lack; Mashers, 'stead of Meschers sur Gironde, Point Coober, 'stead of de la Coubre, and Royan… well, that'un needs no change, but…'

'I see,' Lewrie said. 'Well, thank God for't, for my French is next to nonexistent, and I mangle enough already. So, it'isn't the Cote Sauvage, it's the ' Savage Coast,' is it? My coast, perhaps? Or, might well be by the time I'm done with it, ha ha! Capital idea. Just 'cause the Frogs own 'em is no reason we have to go all nasal and 'hawn hawn' t'say 'em.'

'Uhm, there will be another matter, Captain Lewrie,' Hogue said in a more serious tone, 'so far we purchase wine, foodstuffs, and news with shillings, half-crowns, and crown pieces, in silver, and, with the shortage of specie aboard our ships at present, and the shortage of it at home, we might need an infusion of coin, and how that may be found, or from whom, I've not the slightest hope. I seriously doubt that Admiralty would ship us out a keg or two o' guineas.'

I'm suddenly so responsible for it I have to pay for it, too? Lewrie gawped to himself; this could get as expensive as lawyers/

'I'll sail out and speak to Commodore Ayscough again,' Lewrie somewhat reluctantly vowed. 'Who knows? Maybe his Scottish clan is richer than Midas. Maybe he could arrange a whip-round of his wardroom for donations! God knows, if Ayscough has to submit it to Lord Boxham, they both have to refer it to Admiralty, we'll still be spectators off this coast 'til next Epiphany.'

'If Lord Boxham thinks it valuable, sir, he might give us some of his contingency funds,' Hogue rather wistfully suggested.

'He wants what fleet the Frogs might have up by Bordeaux to come out, so he can crush 'em, Commander Hogue,' Lewrie gravelled. 'Ruining their forts, spikin' guns and all, might scare them out of the idea.'

'There is that, sir, sad t'say,' said Hogue, deflated.