Troubled Waters

spies, and the guillotine, hmm?'

'Oh, mais oui!' Durant replied, wincing. Au revoirs were said in haste, fakes attention said for Brasseur to take care, and even more merci beaucoups, along with bonne chance and good luck before the fellow went down the man-ropes and boarding battens to a waiting boat.

Lewrie stood by the open entry-port, his cocked hat held high in salute, with a smile plastered on his phyz, though fuming that both his informants had given him diametrically opposed observations, and he still couldn't fathom which to believe. Bastards! he snarled; vous menteurs fumiers… lyin' shits! Or, is it fu-miers menteurs} Tow an adjective… le waggon green, by God.

'Anything of note aboard his boat, Mister Devereux?' he asked the Marine officer.

'The usual trash, and nothing more, according to Corporal Skipwith, sir,' Devereux said with a faint smirk. 'Hardly any catch this morning, either, he told me.'

'Mister Urquhart? Soon as Desmond secures the launch, pray do get us under way,' Lewrie instructed. 'We shall continue our little jog down towards Point Grave, and see if there are any changes to the battery there. Might take a pot-shot at it, do I feel surly. And I do.'

Lt. Urquhart acknowledged his orders, touched his hat, and went to the quarterdeck. Lewrie thought a stroll to the forecastle and a turn down the starboard side might settle breakfast, but…

'Your pardons, Captain,' Mr. Durant said, a quizzical look upon his face. 'There is something I must mention. I do not know if it is important, but…,' he said with one of his deep, Gallic shrugs.

'Walk with me, sir,' Lewrie offered, and they set off forrud.

'That fellow, sir… Jean Brasseur,' Durant began, raising an eyebrow in query. 'He sells us more than fish and wine?'

'He does, Mister Durant,' Lewrie admitted, tight-lipped, hands clasped behind his back. 'None good, really.'

'And he says he is from one of the seaside villages, yes?'

'From Le Verdon, down yonder, aye,' Lewrie said, his attention fixed more on the neatness of the flemished piles of running rigging, how lines were coiled over the pins in the rails, and giving the taut stays a thump with his fist.

'Then that is very odd, Captain,' Durant said with a frown on his face, 'for in conversing with him, I do not hear the accent of the Medoc, nor the Sain-tonge or Aquitaine, either.'

'Hmm?' Lewrie gawped, coming to a full stop to face Mr. Durant. 'He's not a local, d'ye say, sir?'

'When I study in Paris to be physician, sir, I meet many young men from many provinces,' Durant worriedly explained. 'If one cannot speak perfect Parisian, well… one is teased, yes? My own accent of Picardy resulted in… no matter. Yet, because of this, I may swear that this M'sieur Brasseur has the accent I recall of fellows who come from Provence. This is very odd, n'est-cepas, Captain?'

'Yet he claims his family's lived by the Gironde since the time of Queen Eleanor and one of our King Henrys!' Lewrie exclaimed. 'His multiple granther's s'posed to've been an English archer! Damn my eyes, if he's…!' Said he'd been in the French Navy during the American Revolution.'

And what was in Provence? Lewrie furiously recalled; Marseilles , Toulon, Nice,… all of 'em French naval bases! Christ, I've been led round like a prize sheep! He's been lyin' from the start.

'You couldn't be in error, could ye, Mister Durant? All these years since…?' Lewrie pressed.

'At medical college, sir, I was known as quite the witty mimic,' Durant told him, smiling in reverie for a moment, almost preening over his old skill. 'We all made poor provincials the butt of our japes… for I received my share, as well, you see?' It is not an idle boast on my part to aver that I still possess my… ear for accents. He is surely from Provence, sir. Perhaps long-removed, but this Brasseur fellow sprang from there… grew up there… spent a good part of his life on the Mediterranean coast.

'Another niggle, sir, which just now strikes me,' Durant posed before Lewrie could begin to splutter. 'Pardons, Captain, but yours is a name which you have surely noted that people you have met, overseas, is difficult for them to pronounce. The closest a Frenchman may come would be something like 'Lu-ray,' yes?'

'Lah… Lur… Luh, I've heard a slew, aye. Go on, sir.'

'Yet, this Capitaine Brasseur says 'Lew-ree' as easily as, what is the English phrase? As easily as 'kiss my hand,' yes? As if this fellow knows about you d'avance, uhm… beforehand, sir?'

'Mine arse on a band-boxl' Lewrie spluttered; now that he, had something worth spluttering about. 'Damn my eyes, but that foreign son of a bitch's diddled me! Thinks he has, damn 'is blood. But o' course the French sicced Navy officers out here, posing as fishermen, to spy out our doings. Our intentions too, by God!

'Well, Jean 'Crapaud' Brasseur's got another think comin', sir,' Lewrie vowed, in some heat. 'And, thankee, Mister Durant. I'd not've tumbled to him, were it not for your keen ear, and keener wit.'

'It was nothing, sir,' Durant preened in false modesty. 'Just an odd… niggle in my 'noodle,' hawn hawn!'

'Keep nigglin', sir,' Lewrie told him, 'niggle away! Now we're warned, though… we're onl' he crowed, to Mr. Durant's mystification. 'Now I know which of 'em to believe, and who'd imagine Jules Papin an honest man? Well, mostly so, no matter. As a friend, no-an acquaintance, for I'll not call him 'friend' this side of Hell-says, 'The game's afoot'!'

BOOK IV

…wherefore with thee,

Came not all Hell broke loose?

John Milton (1608-1674),

Paradise Lost, Book IV, 917-918

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

A spate of rough weather had forced several days' delay, after an anxious week more before Rear-Admiral Iredell, Lord Boxham, had made up his mind, and had summoned Lewrie from the close blockade, fetching Commodore – Ayscough in Chesterfield, as well, to thrash the minutiae of the plan to a dubious hash, and a mere semblance of Lewrie's original scheme, then re-assemble its various pieces into a cogent whole. That process had required two councils of war, a fortnight's worth of dithering, carping, and fault-finding, along with some flushed and angry faces, a great deal of swallowed pride, and here and there some gnawing of finger nails, before Lord Boxham had given his grudging approval… depending upon the weather, of course, and the veracity of the information, which Lewrie had to vouch for.

Then had come another full day far offshore for the Marines and landing parties of armed sailors to be transferred from their own ships to HMS Chesterfield, HMS Lyme, a brace of Third Rate 74s, to HMS Savage… from which they would be parcelled out to the brigs and cutters.

Another council of war had to be held aboard Savage to brief the new-comes' officers, Midshipmen, and petty officers, to assign duties to Bartoe, Shalcross, and Umphries, to Kenyon and Hogue. That one was conducted on a day of curling iron grey seas and greenish white spume, and a