out in a sickly sweat.
'I'll have Savage within a half-mile of you, and will swoop down to cover your withdrawal,' Lewrie assured him. 'Your own six-pounders can engage, shootin' over the heads of your landing-party as they row out. Who knows? With any luck at all, our guns will slaughter a few more o' the bastards! Our seeming attempt, and its repulse, may lead the French to re-enforce their 'success,' luring even more troops away from the narrows.'
'Or, result in them sending a brigade up from Bordeaux to garrison every point, sir,' Kenyon gloomily supposed aloud.
'Then we tried, at the least,' Lewrie told him, 'and will have to content ourselves in cruising off this miserable place 'til the next Epiphany. At least the victuals and wines'll be tasty!'
'The next calm day, then, sir?' Kenyon resignedly said.
'The next calm day, aye.'
Suitable conditions did not come, though, until nearly a week later, for with the arrival of Autumn came more boisterous seas, with gusting winds, now and again round-the-clock showers, and tall curlers breaking on the beaches of Sou'west France so hard the sands thudded.
Savage, perforce, had to stand further out from the coast, and tack sentry-go North and South under reduced sail, with the shore lost in the mists and swirling rain. The brig-sloops and cutters attempted to maintain their vigils on the Gironde, but the weather, now and again, drove them out beyond the 'invisible line' 'twixt Pointe de la Coubre and Pointe de Grave, and even several more miles to seaward, to avoid the risks of grounding on a lee, and hostile, shore should a real storm howl in from the open Atlantic.
Finally, the skies cleared, the violence of the wind-whipped sea subsided, and the tiny squadron could stand in to take up their guard positions once more.
'Erato signals 'Affirmative,' sir,' Midshipman Grisdale eagerly reported.
'Very well, Mister Grisdale. Lower the hoist,' Lewrie ordered. 'A point more to loo'rd, Mister Urquhart. Follow Erato shoreward.'
'Aye, sir,' the First Officer glumly replied, then relayed that to the Quartermasters on the helm.
Is he still sulkin? Lewrie thought, part amused, part put out.
Lt. Urquhart's nose was out of joint over missing the opportunity for notice and glory by participating in the ambush. The sight of souvenir shakoes, hangers, and such nigh-made him growl and grind his teeth! He was even 'pettish' over Lt. Gamble's small part in the action, even if all that worthy had done was trundle water kegs back from the woods to the beach without losing a single sailor to sprained fingers, loading the boats, and merely standing by… most-like anxiously and enviously himself!
Wasn 't my fault I wanted t 'walk on solid ground, Lewrie thought with a weary groan; wasn't like /knew the Frogs 'd turn up just then, and I gave him credit in my report to Ayscough, for re-stowin'so damn'quick. Told him so, damn my eyes!But no, he'speeved as a drunk bear!
'A fine morning for it, eh, Mister Urquhart?' Lewrie assayed.
'S'pose so, sir, aye,' Urquhart dutifully replied.
'Winds light enough to fetch-to, 'thout any risk of drifting on the beach,' Lewrie commented once more, hoping for a better response. 'A mile off, and North of Erato, so our guns aren't masked by her, and ready to get back under way, quick as a wink. Think the French really have set themselves up yonder, sir? A fine morning for killing, have they done so.'
'Aye, sir, a fine morning for that,' Urquhart answered, sounding a tad perkier. 'Our larboard battery's ready for it, sir.'
I'm babblin'like a ninny! Lewrie chid himself; and who the Hell cares how he feels? Only one set o 'feelin 's aboard this barge. Mine!
Lewrie put those niggling, petty details away and lifted a telescope to his right eye as Erato began to round up into the wind, hands aloft to reduce sail even further. All her rowing boats, already off the cross-deck boat-tier beams and towed astern, were being hauled up close astern, to be led round to the entry-port. Kenyon would not let go anchors, but fetch-to, Erato's stern angled towards the beach. One great spin of her helm and she could fall off her precarious balancing act, and bare her own larboard 6-pounder cannon to the foe… assuming the French were there.
He pulled out his pocket-watch, opened the cover with his thumb, and took a look at the time; ten minutes, and the boats were yet to be loaded and sent off.
'Takin' his own sweet time, ain't he?' Lewrie muttered under his breath. 'Come on, damn yer eyes, get a move on!'
'Off Point Coober, sir… the good weather's brought out some of the local fishermen,' Lt. Urquhart pointed out from the starboard side of the quarterdeck. 'About six miles off, just outside the 'hook,' ' he said, using the colloquial slang pronunciation the squadron had adopted.
'Thankee, Mister Urquhart,' Lewrie replied. 'Time, I think, to round up and take in sail, though. Spanish Reef courses and tops'ls, let fly jibs and spanker, as we planned.'
'Aye aye, sir!'
Finally, all three of Erato's boats were loaded with oarsmen and other hands armed to protect them. A few middling kegs were visible amidships all three, not the great butts usually stored on lower tiers, but the sort spotted on the weather deck and mess deck for the crew to dip into to slake their thirst.
'Lovely day, really,' Lt. Adair could be heard to comment to one of the Midshipmen. And it was, Lewrie thought. The sea was mostly calm, rippling with a myriad of wavelets of silvery blue, most artfully so, more like a lake stroked by gentle winds than a salt sea. The beaches were broad and inviting, with waves raling in and out almost sleepily, with light froth where they broke. A myriad of sea birds were a'wing, too, and flocks of gulls wheeled and gyred round the fetched-to ships. It was only the forests behind the beach, beyond the overwash dunes or scraggly salt grasses, that looked deep dark, and foreboding.
'Coming? So is Christmas,' Lewrie griped as Erato's boats, now within musket-shot of the beach, rocked and heaved slightly on the incoming waves, the sailors resting on their oars, and Coxswains and the Midshipmen commanding each boat peering intently through their telescopes at the woods. Lewrie raised his own glass to peer at them, then swivelled about to look at Erato's quarterdeck. Even at half a mile's separation, he could espy Commander Kenyon pacing the lee side of his ship, his own telescope to his eye, and now and then slamming a fist on the cap-rails of the bulwarks in frustration and fret.
'A hoist from Erato, sir!' Midshipman Grisdale piped up, breaking the hushed, anxious silence. 'It's… not for us, sir. It's…' He fumbled with his code book, for it was one rarely used and unfamiliar to him. 'To his boats, it would appear, sir… 'Proceed.' '
The lead boat, Erato's, cutter, began to stroke shoreward; slow, to be sure, with the brig-sloop's First Officer standing in the stern. A moment later, and the other two, the gig and launch, started to follow.
'Didn't order him t'do that!' Lewrie all but yelped in worry. 'What the Devil's he playin' at? Be ready to get a way on, sir,' he called over his shoulder to Lt. Urquhart.
The cutter was almost up to the gentle surf line, a musket-shot from the edge of the dense forest, a pistol-shot from the dunes, with the two other boats still following on either quarter of the leader's boat in a deep V.
'Frogs!' came a howl from the main-mast tops.
'Damn my eyes!' Lt. Urquhart cried, one hand leaping to seize the hilt of his small- sword, no matter how useless the gesture was.
'Get under way, sir, this instant!' Lewrie barked. 'Open ports, and run out the larboard battery, Mister Adair. To your stations for action, gentlemen.'
A two-deep line of French soldiers sprang from the earth, just back of the overwash dunes where they had hidden themselves from view in the shallow, natural ditches. Erato's cutter was frantically
