Troubled Waters

Thirteen of her 18-pounders on the larboard beam, four of her quarterdeck 9-pounders, hurled a blizzard of iron into the dark woods, and even stout old trees swayed and thrashed like saplings assailed by the gusts of a West Indies hurricane! Shattered limbs came whirling down, pines with trunks as thick as a young woman's waist burst twelve or fifteen feet from the ground, and came lancing down among a cloud of splinters. That first crushing broadside bracketed the left-flank gun position and the place where the left-hand company of infantry had gone to ground!

'Swab out! Up, powder boys!' Lt. Adair chanted, pacing behind the recoiled guns, now and then cautioning crewmen to overhaul the run-out and recoil tackles, and watch where they placed their feet, else a man could be crippled for life in a twinkling. 'Shot your guns…!'

'Bloody grand, Mister Adair!' Lewrie shouted down, making their young Scot beam with pleasure. 'Serve the snail-eatin' shits again!'

Spikes and crow-levers came out so the men could shift aim for the centre positions. Wood quoins beneath the gun breeches were carefully adjusted for elevation. Adair looked up and down the deck, and found every gun re- loaded. 'Run out your guns! Clear away the tackle! Prime/'

'Four fathom! Four fathom t'this line!' the larboard leadsman shouted from the fore-chains.

'Half point t'windward, Mister Urquhart,' Lewrie cautioned.

'Take careful aim, let's not waste 'em!' Lt. Adair was yelling. 'The finer your eye, the more Frogs we get to kill.'

'Jus' like ol' Mister Catterall, 'e is,' a quarter-gunner cried with a laugh, referring to their former Second Officer, who had died the year before in the South Atlantic. ' 'Orrid mad for fried Frogs!'

'Waste your fire, Pulteney, and I'll curse like Catterall, too!' Lt. Adair promised, japing back. Gun-captains' arms rose into the air to signal readiness. 'Cock your locks/' The final step done, the arms went back up, the gun-captains' other hands drawing the lock cords taut as bow-strings. 'On the up-roll.. .fire/'

Titanic roars, more heavy shudders, great clouds of powder smoke blotting out everything to leeward, and only slowly drifting away, and thinning, but Lewrie, now perched atop the larboard bulwarks with a hand to shield his eyes, could relish the avalanche of grape, and round-shot that harvested trees like a farmer's scythe for a joyous second before the smoke cloud took his view away-

'Uhm… should he be doing that, Mister Winwood, sir?' Midshipman Grisdale timidly asked the Sailing Master.

'Oh, this is nothing, Mister Grisdale,' Winwood replied in his usual phlegmatic way. 'You should see the way he acts in a real scrap. Our Captain is a man lorn to combat.'

HMS Savage served the French positions yet another heavy broadside as she slowly cruised down the coast, passing in front o? Erato, which Kenyon had at last gotten under her own slow way, going up to windward just far enough for Savage to shave by down her larboard side. And, with the guns levered round 'til the muzzles, hot enough to scorch wood by then, pointed as far aft as they could bear for yet another, a parting broadside. And, there was not a single shot fired in reply by the French. Their light artillery might not have been smashed, crews who served them might not have been slaughtered to a man, but… they had all been buried under enough fallen trees and scrap lumber to make a good start at building a small Sixth Rate!

'Secure the guns, Mister Adair,' Lewrie finally ordered as he hopped down from his perch atop the bulwarks. 'Damned fine work, men! Damned fine shooting, by every Man-Jack! When the Bosun pipes 'Clear Decks and Up Spirits,' we shall 'Splice the Main-Brace'!'

'Stand out to sea, sir?' Lt. Urquhart enquired, looking a lot perkier than he had an hour before; action agreed with him, it seemed.

'if ye'd be so kind, Mister Urquhart,' Lewrie told him, smiling back. 'Sorry we could gather no souvenirs this time.'

'Well, a bucket of what's left yonder, sir, is hardly what one might take home to boast of!' Urquhart rejoined with a chortle.

Lewrie gave him another grin and a reassuring nod, then went aft down the larboard side, past the quarterdeck 9-pounders and the gun crews who were now sponging out, to the taffrails and larboard lanthorn at the stern to survey the beach. With telescope extended to its uttermost, he could discern movement ashore; a few French soldiers in white trousers and blue coats staggering about amid the man-high reef of tree limbs, digging for their comrades, and dragging free the stunned living and the wounded.

Astern… Erato had fetched-to once more as her cutter limped alongside at last. Men swarmed over her larboard side to the boat to help their wounded aboard, and rope slings and a quickly rigged Bosun's chair were going over the side, as well. The Lieutenant in the cutter's stern-sheets seemed to have survived his ordeal, which was a glad sight to Lewrie; had the man been killed or 'wounded, and were Lewrie to do the 'charitable thing,' he might have had to give up one of his Commission Officers into her. Charity? Lewrie queasily thought; or guilt? For it had been by his orders that Erato and her crew had been placed in jeopardy, and… he'd made an error.

Didn 't expect that sized French presence, he gloomed; infantry, yes, maybe one gun, or two, but… I told Kenyon t'pretend t'land, not go all the way! His cutter's bow was almost t'dry sand! Well, close enough ashore that the sailors could've stepped out and not gotten wet above their knees. Drab as Kenyon's career's been so far, perhaps he needed t 'exceed his orders, and get a line or two in the newspapers.

And, Lewrie could savour one good that had come from the action; the French had reacted to his recent ambush and the slaughter of their soldiers over-reacted, really, and had committed about a half of a regiment and, what Lt. Deveroux told him was the entire artillery complement of that regiment. What little joy the French might have taken from their clever ambuscade, he had dashed by decimating the soldiers and artillery pieces assigned to it!

So, what'll they do, next? Lewrie asked himself, his lips curling up in a secret smile; after they 're done with cursin' andpulhn' their hair out? Call for more troops, aye, but… where 'II they put 'em, I wonder?

Lewrie could fantasise a host of barges coming down-river from Bordeaux, the Frogs in a fury to complete the Pointe de Grave battery, and transport another company of troops to guard it, faster than they could march. Another company to the St. Georges fort, perhaps? With another taut grin, he could imagine a whole string of hidden batteries down the Cote Sauvage; by the tip of the Maumusson Channel, the one by the creek and spring re-established, this time with even more troops and guns, guns heavy enough to deal with a frigate. And, might they also try to defend every point? St. Palais sur Mer, Soulac, Royan, and the 'hook' of Pointe de la Coubre? Might they also fear that a British expedition might sneak past the guns of St. Georges and go for Meschers sur Gironde, or even Talmont, where the blockade runners supposedly put in, in hopes of a dark, moonless night?

God A'mighty! Lewrie suddenly thought; Papin told me the fort by Saint Georges has 12- and \%-pounders, nothing heavier, so… right now, they can't span the river narrows, not 'til the battery at Pointe de Grave's finished! Oh, scurry, scurry, scurry, Froggie!And, who tries t'defendev'rything, ends defendin'nothing!

Why, a few more of those 'flea-bites' of his, and they might end up transferring an entire brigade to the mouth of the Gironde, robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Lewrie turned to pace back to the forrud end of the quarterdeck, hands behind his back, yet with a spring to his step. He knew he had two things to do, immediately; one would be to speak to Kenyon and ask of his losses, try to atone for them, without admitting that he'd been wrong. The second would be to run down Papin and Brasseur, some other fishermen, and get a sense of what the local reaction was, and… shell out a guinea or two for what information those two had gathered.