The French Admiral

'My immediate superior said to retain a dozen, and that is what I must do, sir,' Alan told him, almost too weary and too lost in a really good case of the Blue Devils to argue. He just wanted the man to go away so he could silently contemplate his chances of survival 'til the morning meal and perhaps perform his litany of revenge on his father who had put him into the Navy so he could end up in such a mess.

'Goddamme, you'll give me all or I'll have you put under close arrest,' the officer threatened. He motioned to his gunners to aid him.

'With the best will in the world, I could not, sir. How could I destroy my guns without charges when the time comes?'

Not that they've been worth a groat the past few weeks, Alan thought. He had dragged them from pillar to post and done nothing of value with them since; never fired a round in anger—for lack of opportunity at first and then for lack of powder and shot in the second instance. Might be satisfying to burn the fuckers and unbush them at that.

'When what time comes, sir?' the artilleryman shouted over the sound of the barrage. 'What do you mean by that sort of croakum?'

'When the Rebels and the French have pounded us to bits, sir, and come over the walls,' Alan calmly said.

'Never heard such insufferable nonsense. Now order your man to give me all your powder, all of it, mind, and be quick about it.'

'Will you also give me a signed order to destroy my guns at the same time, sir?' Alan demanded.

'Who is your captain, you puppy? What ship?'

'Treghues… the Desperate, sir,' Alan replied, thinking fast. 'If you take all our powder and cartridges, then there is no point in keeping two valuable naval guns ashore. Would you object to our taking the pieces back aboard without powder?'

Go on, Alan thought, give me an excuse to get out of this before it all falls apart.

'Damn you, and damn your insolence!' the officer raged his hands straying near his pistols. 'Sergeant, take everything in the magazines to the carts. I'll thank you not to hinder us, if you won't help.'

'Take what you like, then, sir,' Alan said.

The army officer's party made quick work of scavenging everything in the magazines—all the small kegs of loose powder, all but a handful of firing quills, most of the tin canisters of musket balls for antipersonnel shot, and all the bundles of grapeshot, leaving only three charges per gun with the useless round shot. They trotted away with it in their small carts, dodging the shell bursts.

'And may you be blown to Perdition!' Alan called after them, once they were almost out of earshot and he was finally able to vent his true feelings.

'Thort he wuz gonna shoot ya, so I did, Mister Lewrie,' Knatchbull finally said after he had regained his normal breathing.

'Not his kind,' Alan sneered, very relieved that the man had not done that or had him dragged off to a summary court, which would have resulted in the same thing. 'Who do we have who's a good runner?'

'Runner, sir?' Knatchbull cogitated. 'Well, Tuckett's not bad, sir.'

'Have him come up here while I write a note to our captain,' Alan said. He sat down next to his small jute bag and dug into it for some scrap paper and a stub of pencil. 'How would you like to get back to our ship, Knatchbull?'

'God, that'd be grand, Mister Lewrie!' The man beamed. 'Kin we do it?'

'We serve no useful purpose here any longer, not without powder. We can't help the marines, except to leave them the swrivels. There's a chance we may be ordered to take these two guns of ours back into Desperate. And us with 'em.'

'Right away, Mister Lewrie!'

Cornwallis's harried staff saw no sense in two useless guns left ashore to be captured, so they spent the rest of the day knocking the extemporized field carriages apart and taking the guns and the remaining round shot back aboard.

Desperate still was shy her two carronades and the four 9-pounders on the Gloucester side, but she had fourteen guns back in place should she be called upon to fight her way out, with enough reserve gunpowder from the bottom-tier kegs to make a short but spirited engagement of it.

Everyone from Lewrie's party, and Alan most of all, was greatly relieved to be back aboard. The men were once more in the bosom of their mates in relatively more comfortable surroundings; though the rations had deteriorated in quantity and quality there was still enough rum. They felt oddly safe in the understandable world of the Navy, instead of in the dubious clutches of the army, eager to embrace the rigid discipline of a ship-of-war, especially one that was not being fired at. Under the bluffs and free of direct observation by French or Rebel batteries, they could sit out the bombardment without fear for the first time in days.

Alan found his sea-chest and clean clothes, a hammock man ready to tend his needs and wash up the clothes off his back, a bucket of hot river water in which to scrub up, and a peaceable sit-down supper with Carey and Avery, with the last of their personal wine stock to drink in relative quiet. The barrage continued through supper, petering out for a while as he rolled into his hammock and bedding and discovered all over how easy it was to sleep snug and warm, free of the ground.

Almost before his head touched the roll of sailcloth that was his pillow, he was dead to the world. So he slept through the assault by the French Royal Deux-Ponts Regiment and an American regiment under the ambitious Colonel Alexander Hamilton that took Redoubts number Nine and number Ten, the last bastions before the smashed ramparts on the southeast end of Yorktown. He slept through the counter-battery fire from the British lines, snoring so loudly that Carey tried to wake him to make him stop, but Alan was too far gone to even respond to vigorous shaking.

It was only at 4:00 a.m., when all hands were piped on deck to begin the ship's day and scrub down her decks, that he awoke, and the barrage was so loud that he did not hear the British sally to try and retake the redoubts, for drums and musketry could not carry over the roar of the cannonade. Events on shore, even unsuccessful ones, touched him no more.

I should hate this bloody ship like the plague, Alan thought as dawn painted the decks with faint light, revealing the sameness of a warship that held no surprises after long service on those very decks. But damme if this don't feel hellish good.

'Good mornin' ta ya, Mister Lewrie,' Monk said.

'And a good morning to you, Mister Monk,' he replied cheerfully, even glad to see Monk's ugly physiognomy and ungainly bulk.

Treghues was pacing the weather side of the quarterdeck deep in thought, as he usually did, speaking to no one until he had had his coffee and breakfast. He seemed much leaner than before, but Alan put that down to the plain commons everyone had been reduced to lately. He met Alan's eyes only once and nodded a silent greeting, which Alan returned with a doffed hat, but there was no malice in those haunted eyes for once.

Temporary the respite might be; the army was on the very last dregs of endurance, and the best defenses had been ripped away during the night. The enemy guns still did terrible duty on the bluffs above their heads, and it was hard to determine if any British guns were still firing in response. Another day or two might see the end of everything, and Desperate was still trapped in the river, and in the bay. Yet she still seemed safe and womblike. Over one hundred guns were in action, but she drifted in a sour haze of powder smoke and flung dirt as though nothing could ever touch her, or hers.

Around ten in the morning, Lieutenant Railsford came aboard from his post on the Gloucester side, bringing some of his gunners with him. There were only two 9-pounders left in operation now with Tarleton and his dismounted cavalry troopers in their fortifications, and the other two had been smashed. Railsford conferred with Treghues, and then they both went over to the shore to talk to Symonds.

'Something is up, I fear,' Avery said softly by Alan's side.

'Surrender,' Alan surmised. 'There's nothing left of the fortifications that a lazy cripple couldn't scale.'

'Is it that bad ashore?'

'Yes, by Heaven, it is,' Alan told him, wondering where the hell David had been the last few days. 'I wonder