The Invasion Year

When one was summoned by a senior officer, it was a given that it would be “With All Despatch,” with no time frittered in shaving, sponging off, or primping. Pettus had come up from his great-cabins with Lewrie’s everyday sword belt and hanger, and a clean uniform coat to replace a cotton one long ago gone bad, a sorry experiment in tropical clothing that had faded and bled dark-blue dye to the point that it had gone a spotty sky blue, the gilt lace trim verdisgris green and sick-making.

But, it was comfortable, was so bleached it could ruin no more shirts, waist-coats, or breeches, and it was cool, unlike the requisite broadcloth wool coat.

Liam Desmond, his Coxswain, stroke-oar Patrick Furfy, Desmond’s long-time mate, and the rest of the boat crew had been ready below the entry-port by the time Lewrie had taken Reliant’s ritualist departure honours, and within minutes, they were off for a long mile row out to the two-decker flagship.

Plenty of time for Lewrie to fret, that. On the one hand, he and the other officers of their wee four-ship squadron had won fame and a pot of prize-money back in September when they had succeeded in chasing down a French squadron that had sailed from French-occupied Holland for Saint Domingue, then New Orleans. They had met them off the Chandeleur Islands, east of the Passes into the Mississippi, and had fought a spirited hour’s action resulting in the capture of one two-decker 74, a frigate and two corvettes, and an East Indiaman that had been reputed to carry a battalion of troops and government officials for the ceremonial handover of New Orleans and all the Louisiana Territory to the United States, after recovering them by treaty from Spain.

That fame had come with a tinge of scandal for Lewrie, for he had run down the Indiaman alone, then decided to let the French civilians-refugees from Saint Domingue for the most part-be put ashore from Lake Borgne to make the fifteen-mile trek to New Orleans and freedom. Some newspaper accounts thought it an honourable gesture of Christian magnanimity, the act of a proper British hero… fellow officers in the West Indies had deemed it daft, and soft-hearted-dash it all, but hadn’t Napoleon Bonaparte ordered Lewrie’s death over some insult during the Peace of Amiens, and the Ogre’s men had killed his wife with a cowardly shot in the back at the very moment they had almost made a clean escape by boat? Damme if the French hadn’t! So, why would a chap like Lewrie show a whit of mercy to the Frogs? Had they been in his boots, they’d have not, by God!

Raised from the cradle to hate the French like the very Devil, as all good Englishmen should, with anger and grief over Caroline’s murder to stoke his hatred white-hot, still… Lewrie could not make war on helpless civilians, on women or children. He’d had a moment, admittedly, when ordering a broadside had been so tempting, but he had not. He could have taken them all back to Jamaica with the navy crews of the other prizes, but… had they not suffered enough? They were innocent of Caroline’s death, and New Orleans had been so close by.

Which camp’s Loring in, I wonder? Lewrie thought as the oarsmen set a powerful stroke seaward; Am I saint or sinner, to him?

* * *

“Ah, Captain Lewrie, welcome, sir,” Commodore Loring said, with all evident delight as Lewrie entered the great-cabins. “A glass, will you, sir?”

“Aye, that’d be fine, sir,” Lewrie replied, looking about at the gathering of officers. A steward came with a glass of cool Rhenish for him, and Lewrie took a tentative sip.

“Captain John Bligh, of Theseus,” Loring went on, doing the introductions, “Captain Barre… Captain Lewrie of Reliant. Pardons, for my brevity, but, French pride, and their touchy sense of honour, force me to be brief. I am sending a delegation to General Rochambeau once more, his last warning. Does he not sail out and strike his colours, I will leave him to the doubtful mercies of the rebel Blacks. At the same time, I am despatching another delegation ashore to speak with this so-called General Dessalines, and his cohorts. Bligh and Barre are to speak for me, Lewrie, but, given your long experience with the colony of Saint Domingue, I thought it useful to send you along with them, Lewrie… to supply these gentlemen with your insights.”

What? Lewrie thought, gawping. His mouth dropped agape at the idea, his eyes went wide. What bloody experience? What insights?

“Beg pardon, sir?” Lewrie said, once he’d got his breath back. “In a previous commission, I came t’know the coasts main-well, but as for what passes ashore…”

“Did you not enter Mole Saint Nicholas?” Loring snapped, peering at him owlishly. “Spend some time ashore at Port-Au-Prince, when our army was here?”

One night… in a whore-house, Lewrie recalled.

“We were close ashore at Mole Saint Nicholas, sir, providing indirect fire for our troops,” Lewrie explained. “I did go ashore for a day, to visit a friend at his regiment, and dined ashore that night, in Port-Au-Prince… the night the city was invested by L’Ouverture and his army, and we began the evacuation, sir.”

Those damned drums! He remembered how they’d thudded like bloody beating hearts, ripped from the chests of the massacred. They scared the piss outta me, for certain, and put my “high-yellow” girl into pluperfect shits, t’boot. Don’t see how that’s useful.

“No fluency in their Creole lingo?” Captain Barre asked, a brow up in doubt. “No background information?”

“I doubt anyone speaks their private patois, sir,” Lewrie told him, “but, they deal with the outside world in French, don’t they? As for background information, well… I did pick up on who-hates-who and how much, the various massacres and betrayals, but…”

“Know much of Dessalines, do you?” Captain Barre pressed, now with a faint sneer of disappointment. “Christophe, Petion, and Clairveaux?”

“All four of ’em have been betrayed, betrayed each other, even turned on L’Ouverture, more times than I’ve had hot suppers, Captain Barre,” Lewrie replied. He had no wish to go ashore and deal with the rebel generals, no wish to put himself at that much risk, but the way Barre spoke to him rankled. “None of ’em have a shred o’ trust for any Europeans, at this point,” he added, after a sip of his cool- ish wine.

“And with good reason,” Commodore Loring interjected. “After what the late, un-lamented, General LeClerc, and this chap Rochambeau, did to them. They came with a plan for complete extermination of any Blacks living on the island, and thought to re-populate it with fresh slaves, unaffected by thoughts of independence, or liberty. That is the only way that Saint Domingue could be returned to profitability,” Loring said with a shrug. “Their principal exports depend upon slave labour. Rochambeau deliberately rounded up Blacks and Mulattoes, and drowned them by the umpteen-thousands, right here in Le Cap Bay, not a year past.”

“They’ll burn the ships, and the survivors, to Hell,” Captain John Bligh said with a sigh. “With very good cause. Unless we arrange for the French departure.”

“I will offer Rochambeau and his naval officers rescue from that fate,” Loring told them. “But, only if they sail out by the deadline he has agreed to with Dessalines, tomorrow. I will allow them to fire broadsides, as honourable tokens, before striking their colours. But, that is all I will allow. For the sake of humanity, I wish the rebel generals to accede to that arrangement. You gentlemen will deliver to Dessalines the full meaning of my terms to Rochambeau, and extract from him an agreement that he will not fire upon the French ships,”

“If they obey you, sir, and leave harbour,” Lewrie pointed out. “If Rochambeau does not? Fort Picolet’s forges are already kindled.”

“Then, let us pray that General Rochambeau has seen that, too, and will be convinced that departing Cap Francois is in his best interests, hmm?” Commodore Loring replied.

“All of us, sir?” Captain Barre, ever a skeptic, enquired with a cutty-eyed glance at Lewrie.

“Aye… all of you,” Loring told the man with a shrug, cocking his head to one side as if thinking that three was more impressive than two; or, that, seeing as how they were already up and dressed…?