Troubled Waters

'You fly your pendant, Capitaine Brasseur,' Lewrie said by way of a beginning. 'You have news for me?'

'Oui, Capitaine Lewrie,' Brasseur replied, rolling his glass in his hands after a couple of sips. 'Pardon, but time mus' be short… ze gendarmerie, n'est-ce pas? Zey watch us now, and to spend much time togezzer will be suspect, so…

'Say on, quick as ye must, sir,' Lewrie urged.

Barges, yes; more barges were coming down-river from Bordeaux. Artillery was rumoured aboard them, hastily stripped from idle ships of the line along the city piers, and troops were being moved by barge or roads to the Cote Sauvage, and the banks of the Gironde; all of which confirmed what Jules Papin had told Lewrie not an hour earlier.

It was the details that were contradictory… disturbingly so.

Lewrie pretended to nod, grin a bit, and utter 'Aha!' here and there during Brasseur's rushed description of French preparations for repelling a British 'flea-bite'; he even bothered to make notes of the salient portions of the tale, but…

Jean Brasseur laid out a strong reaction to his ambush and his bombardment, with little mention of how his fellow locals felt, which Lewrie thought odd; but, perhaps because the French people had no say in the matter, and no one was asking their opinion, anyway.

A demi-brigade was rumoured moved to Rochefort and the Cote Sauvage, and a second demi-brigade, gathered from Bordeaux and the provincial capital of Saintes in Saintonge, was to come to Royan and Talmont, to St. Palais sur Mer to erect new fortifications, supposed to be armed with proper 24- pounder and 32-pounder guns. The fort at St. Georges would give up its 12-pounders and 18-pounders for heavier pieces, and those lighter pieces would be sent cross the Gironde to the unfinished battery at Pointe de Grave. With his own eyes, Brasseur swore that he had seen the stone blocks meant to raise the ramparts higher being laid flat for gun platforms, and some blocks of the low walls would be removed to make embrasures for firing.

'I fear, m 'sieur, zat a half-bataillon of soldats will come to my poor village,' Brasseur moodily told him, 'an' take over 'ouses of our people. Officiers 'ave mark-ed doors wiz chalk. So many soldats of which compagnie to each, an' my 'ouse zey will take, an' we mus' feed zem, hein?' he bemoaned, looking frantic for a second. 'Mon Dieu, Capitaine Lewrie, zey stay long, ma famille will starve! An, if zey suspect anyone of disloyalty, of consort wiz enemy… if false accusations are made, ze arrests, ze massacres in ze Vendee, may 'appen all over again. You see why I mus' not be suspect by dealing wiz you?'

'Might you wish to be taken aboard and taken elsewhere, sir?' Lewrie asked; he didn't want the fellow 'scragged'! 'If you are in danger, an escape for you and your family can be arranged.'

'Mon Dieu, Capitaine Lewrie,' Brasseur said as he set his cognac aside and wrung his hands. 'Leave La Belle France? We mus' be curs-ed, our famille. Long ago Anglais outcasts, now, toujours outcast from new country. But… it may be zat, or face ze guillotine. Merci, m'sieur, merci beaucoup! Per'aps I mus' ask you for zis.'

'Well, then,' Lewrie said, reaching for his coin purse to shake out three guineas. 'I'll not keep you so long that your police become suspicious, Capitaine Brasseur. Daunting as the information you bring is, putting yourself to further risk will not be necessary.'

'No 'flea-bite,' Capitaine Lewrie?' Brasseur asked. 'A pity. But wiz ze re- enforcements 'oo come…?' He heaved a deep, negative shrug.

'Don't see how we could accomplish anything, now,' Lewrie found himself saying. Disgruntlement, perhaps, or a faint, peevish suspicion of his own, but he added, 'Nice idea, but no future in it. Not anywhere near where you live, m'sieur. There are better places… no matter.' He cryptically cut himself off, still wondering which to take as Gospel… Papin's version, or Brasseur's.

'Ah, j'ai oublie!' Brasseur cried, all but slapping his head. 'Forgetful of me. I 'ave ze newspapers you ask for.' He traded coins for a wad of papers kept in the chest pocket of his fisherman's smock. 'Zey mention ze raids on Cote Sauvage, an' ze re-enforcements… to assure our citoyens … ze local people.'

'At last! Thankee kindly, sir,' Lewrie enthused, even though he knew that most French papers lied like a rug-as the Frogs said, 'Lied like a bulletin from Paris'-and he would need help from Devereux and Durant and Lt. Urquhart to get a proper translation.

Brasseur gulped down the last of his cognac, stated a sum for his goods, and pocketed his money. Lewrie walked him back to the deck, then up the larboard ladderway to the gangway and entry-port.

Both men stopped, though, for a large crowd of sailors were now gathered round Mr. Durant and his patient, Quarter-Gunner Brough, who sat atop a sea-chest just aft of the main-mast trunk.

'This'll be good,' Lewrie told the Frenchman.

Durant, now in rolled-up shirtsleeves and stained leather apron, was reaching into Brough's gaping mouth with pliers. He twisted, and even Lewrie could hear the sickly crunch of rotten roots. Mr. Durant jerked hard, and the sailors whooped, clapped, and shouted 'Fire One!' as Durant held up the tooth like a conjurer who'd just pulled a dove from someone's nostril. It was a large molar, worthy of a dray horse, stained brown with a lifetime of 'chaw- baccy,' and black with corruption. Brough put a hand to his jaw, spat blood, but made no sound.

'Ge' on wi' ith!' he shouted, to show his 'bottom.'

'Oil of cloves, Brough?' Durant offered, but Brough had surely been dosed with a double tot of rum, already; to which offer the poor fellow shook his head side to side… tentatively, it must be said. 'No fankee, thir!' Brough insisted, glowering at the Surgeon as fiercely as he thought he could get away with, this side of insubordination; the thought that his pay would be docked for his treatment, paying for his own agony, might have had something to do with it.

'Care t'make a wager, sir?' Lewrie asked Brasseur. 'Two to go, and the odds favour him squeakin' by the third.' Fears of lingering too long aboard an enemy warship or no, Brasseur looked bloodthirstily intrigued, with that 'better you than me, mate' smirk on his face.

'Go fer t'other'uns!' Willy Toffett urged. 'Sure'z Christmas comin', he'll squeal like a shoat. Got money on't, hey, lads?'

Out came the second tooth, as rotten as the first, and with it a spurt of greyish blood and yellow pus which Brough spat into a wood pail, demanding again that Durant get it over with. 'Yer borin me, Mister Durant, sir!' he made himself cackle, to the gloomier, quieting crowd of onlookers, some of whom were now regretting their wagers.

Out came the last, and after swigging his mouth clean with sea water, Brough leaped to his feet, arms aloft, and dancing like a successful boxer fresh enough to gloat over his win.

'Huzzah, Mister Durant!' Lewrie called down. 'Most neatly done, I vow! And, Brough…'nother tot o' rum and light duties for a day, for ye stood it manful!'

'Merci, Captain,' Durant called back, bowing at the waist after his pair of loblolly boys had taken charge of his pliers, pail, and apron. 'Ah he, m 'sieur… vous etes Capitaine Brasseur, oui?' Durant all but skipped up the ladderway to the gangway, and began a palaver in rapid Frog. His chances to speak his native-born tongue were lacking aboard Savage, but for the hour a day he tutored the Midshipmen and a few of the Master's Mates who might aspire to Commission, someday; the rest of his waking, on-duty hours were conducted in English, at which Durant had become more than proficient, but… when a chance arose he would gladly seize it, if only for a few minutes with another Frenchman, no matter his class or station, and 'slang' away. Brasseur on his part seemed to enoy it, too, after making a torturous way with Lewrie and a nearly total lack of a common language between them.

'I offer him my medical services, for him or his crew, sir,' Durant said with chuckle. 'For some reason, Capitaine Brasseur refuses my kind offer, you see.'

'He should not be delayed too long, Mister Durant,' Lewrie told the Surgeon. 'Gendarmes,