Zut alors, Capitaine La… m sieur, but you mak ze grand emmerdement' Jules Papin chortled over his first tall glass of rum, 'mon cul eef you do, hawn hawn! Officiers de I'Armee, you give la chiasse, 'ow you say, ze 'runs'? All Medoc, all Saintonge, is be like ze 'eadless chicken, an' soldats be march de long en large, uhm… ze backward an' forwards?'
Papin gleefully related that a demi-brigade, perhaps two thousand men, was rumoured to be on the way to re-enforce Rochefort, Marennes, and La Trem-blade. More troops, about three or four companies, had come up from Bordeaux by barge, at least as far as Meschers sur Gironde, and heavy guns with them, at least six pieces that he'd seen himself, and judged to be 12-pounders. They had all gone down the coast, afoot or upon extemporised gun-carriages, though, for he'd seen them on the coast road, a bit west of St. Palais sur Mer when he'd run a trawl near the shore; perhaps, Papin speculated idly, to set up their guns by the site of his murderous ambush, and his humiliatingly sprung trap.
There was some anger and sadness among the locals over the death of so many soldiers, no matter they weren't local boys themselves, he related; too much a reminder of what had happened, could happen to their own husbands, fathers, sons, and kinsfolk conscripted into the Army, and now very far away.
'More barges, Capitaine? Mais oui,' Papin went on, eying that fresh rum bottle jealously. 'Nord bank of river, to Pointe de Grave not so much, hein? Some say guns for zere are… detourner. Diverted? An' beaucoup de travailleurs… many workers ze Arme'e hire to make fort on ze point, I see go in boats do Le Verdon to Royan. I do wot go to Le Verdon, moi, for people 'oo live zere are tous les fumiers, an' ze regime des hautains salauds degueulasses!'
All of them were shits, and a bunch of stuck-up, disgusting bastards, Papin meant; Lewrie's time off the Gironde was doing wonders for his command of colloquial French, if not the drawing-room variety!
'And, what about Fort Saint Georges, M'sieur Papin?' Lewrie said as he poured the man's glass full with his own hand.
'Is open at rear, as I say before,' Papin said with a sly look. 'Wiz I'arsenal hid-ed in woods, an' zere is a furnace for heat ze shot in centre. T'ree wall, t'ree eighteen-pounder. Two each ze twelves on each wall, aussi… make six twelve-pounder. Six of ze six-pounder down in beach battery at foot, n 'est-cepas?'
Seven… let's say nine gunners per 12-pounder, Lewrie hurriedly speculated to himself, all but counting on his fingers for a bit; eleven for each 18-pounder, and eighteen French equivalents for powder-monkeys runnin' cartridge from their magazine. Five men on each 6-pounder, another dozen boys… say, four Lieutenants, two Captains, and a Major, and that's, uh… 'bout 150, all told.
He named that figure to Papin, who frowned over it, shrugged in the Gallic manner, and guessed a lower number, perhaps only 125. 'An', M'sieur Law… uhm, ze 'alf compagnie infanterie zey 'ad to guard zem, you 'ave already massacre, an' I see no more come, encore… still. Peut-etre, no more zan eight or nine remain of zem, hein? '
Well, that's encouragin', Lewrie thought, leaning back to take a sip of his cold tea, his 'mock rum.'
' Un autre, m 'sieur,' Papin idly said, sipping deep and scratching his unruly hair at the same time. 'Ze ozzer t'ing. Before you massacre, before you bombard… rumour say beaucoup de soldats, beaucoup d'artillerie are to go nord, au Channel coast, but now? Non.'
And, that's… int'restin', Lewrie thought. Could their new Consul, Napoleon Bonaparte, so fear a British invasion cross the Dover Straits that he was fortifying Artois and Picardy against such? Or, was Bonaparte amassing an invasion army of his own against England? In either case, whatever pin-prick or 'flea-bite' launched here off the Gironde could disrupt either of Bonaparte's plans.
'Merci, merci beaucoup, Capitaine Papin, for all your tidings,' Lewrie warmly told him.
'T'anks, mon cul!' Papin growled. 'Tanks be damn, m 'sieur. I pass you' 'school assign-e-ment,' better ze rum, ze gold, be ze reward, hein? Aussi, non to expect you buy from me ze bon marche … ze cheap, no more, non. Gendarmerie 'ave spies, are now angered, an' are now soupconneux, uhm… ze suspicious? Cannot bring you much, an' risk mus' be repaid, hein? I curse zose fumiers, bad as I mus' curse you, comprendre?'
Two hours later, as Savage made her daily rounds of the estuary, the lookouts espied Jean Brasseur's boat, just as shabby and dowdy as she ever was, but, this time flying a much-faded pale blue long pendant from her mast-tip, the agreed-upon sign that Brasseur had information to sell, along with fish.
'Fetch-to, Mister Urquhart,' Lewrie ordered. 'We shall let our fisherman come to us. Nine-pounders and swivels to be manned and loaded, just in case. Pass the word for Desmond, and he is to ferry an inspection party over to his boat. Mister Devereux, do you oblige me to send four Marines and a Corporal with my Cox'n.'
'Directly, sir,' Lt. Devereux crisply replied. 'Though I fear they must be de-loused once back aboard. She's a filthy thing.'
'Permission to mount the quarterdeck, sir?' Mr. Maurice Durant, their emigre French Surgeon, asked from the foot of the larboard ladder from the waist. 'Aye, Mister Durant,' the watch officer, Lt. Gamble, allowed. 'Ah, Captain,' Durant said, once near the binnacle cabinet. 'I hear we will fetch-to, out? Might I enquire how long this stillness may last, sir? Able Seaman Brough, 'is teeth are very bad, and I must extract three of zem, all at once, quel dommage. I wish to do this on deck, sir, not in ze cockpit or my sick bay.'
And Brough had put off the Surgeon's suggestions that he suffer those teeth to be removed several times, 'til the pain was blinding, and Brough could not even take his daily rum ration without groaning. Lewrie strongly suspected that Brough's mates, and more than a few of the crew who served under the Quarter-Gunner, wished to see him howl.
During her conversion from a French frigate to a British ship, Savage had, at Mr. Durant's urgings, re-made the starboard half of the deck under the foc's'le into a most modern sort of sick bay, near the galley for warmth, but fairly open and airy, which all the authorities deemed healthier than a lower-deck compartment. There just wasn't as much room for spectators as was the frigate's waist! 'Very well, Mister Durant,' Lewrie decided. 'Carry on, sir.' 'Merci, Captain!'
Brasseur came almost empty-handed this time, apologising over the quality and quantity of his smuggled goods, the indifference of the assorted bottles of wine, the day-old loaves, and the paucity of fresh cheese.
Even the tightly woven straw basket of oysters, clams, mussels, shrimp, and crabs-along with a few gasping and weakly flopping fish, caught that morning-was only half full.
Brasseur took his ease in Lewrie's great-cabins, silently accepting two bottles of rum and one of Spanish brandy from Lewrie's stores, and a glass of a better brandy, a cognac from Normandy smuggled to England by British scoff-laws. The cats, of course, once Brasseur was seated, made their usual great fuss over him… damn 'em.
