H.M.S. COCKEREL

VI

Hic portus inquit mihi territat hostis has

aeies sub nocte refert, haec versa Pelasgum

terga vides, meus hic ratibus qui pascitur

ignis

.

Lo! Here the enemy is affrighting our

harbour, and here beneath the cover of

night he renews the battle, and here,

see! the backs of the Pelasgians in rout;

this fire that devours the rafts is mine.

– Valerius Flaccus

Argonautica, Book II, 656-59

He dined alone, dispiritedly, picking at his supper and pushing it about his plate more than he ate. As thoroughly blockaded by land as Toulon now was, there wasn't that much food any longer, and prices had gone through the roof. At least the wine was still good, and cheap.

There were few other diners in the restaurant, half of them officers in strange uniforms, proud with gold or silver lace, sprigged in ornate, gewgawy appurtenances which, no matter their martial gaudiness, still made their wearers look like scared shopkeepers. Sardinians, Neapolitans, Redmontese, Spanish… Lewrie was one of the rare British officers not out on the outposts. Bleak as his mood was, the others seemed even more morose. Large liquid Don and Dago eyes, aswim with fear or self-pity, hesitant gestures, where before they chopped at the air or waved their arms in braggadocio. Soft, sibilant mutterings of defeated conversation, much shrugging and sighing… stopping occasionally, as the drumfire of the artillery barrages increased in tempo or volume. Or a shell crashed into the town itself.

They'd been doing that a lot lately, the Frogs; lofting mortars into their own city, five or six rounds a day. Now they had the range. Kettledrums pounded, the candle flames wavered on his table, and glassware softly tinkled as siege guns tore loose upon Fort Malbousquet, and Fort Malbousquet responded. Worried looks were shared among the foreign officers, bleak little giggles in attempts at gallows humour.

And the French… pausing for a moment, stoic faces frozen in what they called sang-froid. Damnit, but the French always had le mot juste, the perfect word or phrase, he sneered. Alan chewed on a slice of goose and swirled the cabernet sauvignon in his large wine glass, studying his wine through the stuck-in-a-bottle candle flame. Studying the Frogs, the other diners. Pere et maman, with their children. Old aristocrats still clinging to silks and satins, successful merchants in well-cut wool coats and waist-coats, the very image of moderate wealth and the latest styles. And so few of them still wearing their Bourbon-white cockades. The last few weeks they'd slowly shed them, like oak trees giving up their final leaves to the winter winds. On the outskirts of Toulon, it was said, the new style was red-white-and-blue Republican colours. And in the middle of town, there were hastily chalked or painted threats on walls, fresh each morning, no matter the patrols. Long, red-wool stocking caps were seen now in public, sported by sour-faced, hard-eyed commoner "patriots"… the sans culottes. Swaggering bullies who dared show the Tricolour, and glared at those who didn't, as if memorising faces and names. Later, they seemed to forebode. We'll know who you are… later.

"M'sieur weesh?" his waiter asked, pointing to his half-eaten and bedraggled supper. An ubiquitous omelet, only two eggs per customer now, a last gamy, oily slice of overcooked goose, and a heel of bread aswim in the fats of half-burnt, half-cooked pommes de terre escallopes.

"Non, merci," he replied sarcastically.

"Plus de vin?"

"Non. L'addition," Lewrie sighed. Nearly a shilling it cost, for what he'd have paid no more than four pence back home. And kicked the cook's arse for ruining it. He got to his feet, gathered up his hat and cloak, and departed.

The others watched him leave in silence, daunted by the grim look on the naval officer's face, the unspoken sneer of disgust he bore when he deigned to glance in their direction. Who is he to sneer at us, they seemed to say… a "pinch-beck" Anglais in a ragged, too-large coat, in slop-trousers instead of a gentleman's knee breeches? Worn old Hessian boots, a plain blue civilian cloak, a hat that had seen a previous war… and that pitiful excuse for a sword!

It was cold that night, cold and icily clammy, with a light wind off the sea. Street lanterns wore haloes of mist, and it smelled like it might rain before morning. Lewrie wrapped himself in the too-large and tatty coat purchased off another officer, grateful its lapels buttoned over each other. Until he received his quarterly draft from Courts', he was forced to live on Navy pay, and a borrowed forty pounds-half of that gone already for the hat, cloak and a mediocre smallsword of dubious temper, the best of a table piled with second-hand blades of even more uncertain character at a civilian shopkeeper's bargain sale.

He walked downhill towards the harbour and the basin, listening to the drumming of the guns. The batteries on des Moulins and Reinier were blazing away, round the clock now. The Little Road had all but been abandoned. So fierce was their fire that no line-of-battle ship or floating battery could dare it for very long.

The streets were suspiciously empty of strollers or late shoppers, even of whores and Corinthians. And where almost every shop window or appartement above had been open and ablaze with light, they were now dark and shuttered, or out of business "temporarily." A waggon creaked down the street, drawn by four heavy dray horses. Moans of wounded could be heard within-a hospital waggon bearing the day's detritus to Hopital de la Charite north of town, outside the walls. A half mile from the site of the latest disaster of two weeks before.

The Republicans had massed a battery on the Heights d'Arenes west of Fort Malbousquet, twenty guns or better, and had begun a deluge of shellfire against that most important strongpoint, the key to the western side. Dundas and O'Hara had marched out next day on 30 November with 2,200 men: Spanish, Neapolitan, Sardinian, 400 of the few French Royalist troops, along with 300 of their precious British; a majority of the mobile reserves who weren't tied to fixed positions, the best of their mediocre, ill-matched lot.

A brisk attack uphill had driven the French from their guns again. But instead of stopping there and consolidating, the troops had rushed on, down into a valley behind the Heights d'Arenes to attack the next-west eminence. But upon that bill, all behind it, was hidden the bulk of General Dugommier's main body, over 20,000; Carteau's men, Mouret's, thousands of soldiers Kellerman and Dugommier had brought in from Lyons and the north.

It had been a sharp slaughter, then a rout, and the French drove the remnants scurrying into Fort Malbousquet. General O'Hara had been wounded and taken prisoner, attempting to rally the troops by the guns. Twenty British had died, ninety wounded, ninety-eight had gone missing, and the allied casualties had been just as severe. The French got their guns back intact. And were now putting them to good use.

And the Austrians… damn their eyes, Lewrie silently fumed! God, how they'd sworn they were on their way, yet… Suddenly, the 5,000 men they'd promised from Italy couldn't be spared, and Rear-Admiral Gell and his squadron, waiting for weeks at Genoa and Vado Bay, had at last sailed back to Toulon, empty.

Sardinians and Neapolitans… liars, too, Alan cursed. Their commissariats too incompetent, disorganised or lazy to arm, equip or train the men promised; no matter how much mon-ey'd been thrown at them, they weren't up to the task. In the spring… perhaps, for more money?

"Fat lot of good they'll do us in the spring," Lewrie snarled in a harsh mutter. "Place doesn't have a month left in it."

And British regiments. That was the worst disappointment. With their so-called allies so suspicious and jealous of England and each other, hedging bets for after the war, arguing points of pride and honour, not cooperating… what looked at times as nigh to treachery… they had need of stalwart British regulars more than ever.

Yet where were they? Dundas and Grenville, the new prime minister William Pitt, the Younger… they'd settled for "war on the cheap." They planned long before the war started to fritter the Army away overseas in the West Indies, to destroy the economy of the French, to take the rich Sugar Isles they'd always lusted after. March up the Hooghly to Chandernagore above Calcutta, destroy the French Indian and Indian Ocean colonies. Destroy their trade and choke them to submission.

That's where the bulk of the British Army had gone, there or into Holland with the Duke of York. And for the enterprise at Toulon, they could not spare one regiment more. And the Army was now doing what all white troops did in the tropics… dying by the battalion of Yellow Jack and malaria without firing a shot, of no use to anyone, gaining nothing, barely able to muster enough strength to take what they'd been sent for!

Drumfire to the south. The Frogs had erected five new batteries in front of Fort Mulgrave on the Hauteur de Grasse, digging and trenching forward, moving nearer each day. If Mulgrave fell, there went Balaguer and L'Eguillette. And with them, any approach to Toulon 's basin, or any hope of sheltering ships in the Great Road, too.

That little coxcomb Buonaparte's work, Alan suspected with a sour groan; aye, take joy of it, ya arrogant little bastard! They were quartered once again in the guardhouse by the dockyard gate. De Crillart spent his nights at home with his family, high up in the town, but his twenty or so surviving Royal Corps of Gunners bunked with Alan's fourteen. Not enough to make crews for two cutters or barges. He'd been assigned a dozen more, men cut adrift from ships off on God knew what missions, more survivors of brave but doomed adventures, those plucked from the sunken ruins of other gunboats that the French had wrecked. No more gun-boats for them, though. Floating batteries were a tad thin on the ground these days, as were the huge sea mortars. As were hollow explosive shells from the arsenals. And fuses and powder. The Poudriere and Fort Millaud had shut down their production after they'd run out of charcoal, saltpetre and sulphur… and Republican bursting-shell had begun to drum around them, threatening a tremendous explosion which would shave the hills level. They'd also run out of Royalist workmen who dared set foot in the places.

No, Lewrie and his men were boatmen now, ferrymen equipped with cutters which shuffled supplies and such about under lugsail or oars to keep the coastline posts fed and armed, to bear wounded from Hauteur de Grasse to hospital, or scuttle between the line-of-battle ships and shore with replacements, rum, biscuit and salt rations for their hands detached ashore.

The wind was picking up, ruffling his cloak and hat, but Alan stood his ground near the guardhouse gate, unwilling to go inside to another night of frowsty air and loneliness, cooped up alone in his miserable little room, with the stink of all those men below wafting up to him. There wasn't coal enough or wood enough to keep a warm fire going long enough to take off the chill, nor enough candles or oil to read by, what was the point; he'd lost all his books when Zele had gone down, and didn't have the patience to ruin his eyes trying to puzzle his way through something written in French anyway. No, he would spend another night, mittened and cloaked, abed with his eyes wide open, staring at the low ceiling 'til sleep came. Or pace the wharves along the basin until he was too tired to care.

Something was moving on the esplanade besides himself. A woman, also cloaked and mittened, hobbling under the burden of a hard-leather portmanteau and a large cloth sack. Her face was concealed by her hood, and the sad straw brims of her bonnet, which the hood forced down either side of her face like horse blinkers, hunched against the cold winds.

"Bonsoir, m'sieur," she drawled. "Etes-vous seul, ce soir?"

Oh, a whore, he sighed to himself. For a moment he'd thought it might be a refugee, looking for shelter, or some girl moving to cheaper lodgings.

"Seul, oui, mais…" he replied sourly, already dismissing her. "Alone, yes."

"Ah, m'sieur Luray!" she cried suddenly, dropping her luggage to come to his side. "M'sieur lieutenant? C'est moi, Phoebe!" she exclaimed, folding back the hood of her cloak. "Vous… remember? Bonsoir!"

Oh, poor Mister Scott's whore, he corrected himself.

"Bonsoir, Phoebe," he grinned. "Haven't seen you around, not… not since Mister Scott passed over." He shrugged in sympathy. She and Scott had become regulars with each other. He might have become all of her trade, the few weeks before his death.

"C'est tragique, pauvre Barnaby," she pouted. " 'E waz ze bon… good man. Tres gentil avec moi, beaucoup de bonte, ver' kin'. Et genereux. Generous? C'est dommage." She shrugged. She did not say that Barnaby Scott had been gentle, just… kindly. In fact, Lewrie thought he'd dealt rather brusquely with her; too dead-set against all French people, even the one he'd been topping, to be civil or gentlemanly.

"Now?" Alan inquired. "Comment allez-vous, maintenant, mademoiselle Phoebe?"

"Ah, je suis tres seule, m'sieur," she replied, snuffling from the cold, though with a game little smile. "Am ver' 'lone. Avant Barnaby nous a quitte… 'e lef us, j'arretez mes affaires… ze beeznees I stop? Encore, je suis la pauvre jeune fille de joie mais… mes affaires ver'… bad. Pour tous les courtesans, all. Gentilhommes 'ave no time, no monnaie, phfft! Too beezy… too pauvre. Too effrayant. Frighten?"

That was another ominous portent to Lewrie's mind-that men in the enclave no longer had coin or time enough to waste on the whores of Toulon -too wrapped up in fears for their safety, too concerned about plotting their escapes with their whole skins to rattle? He'd expected the opposite would be true, that they'd be kicking her door down. Rantipoling always seemed to increase in the face of impending disaster, took men's minds off doom for a while. Like that old adage, "Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die"?

"I waz 'ope you be 'ere, encore, m'sieur Luray," Phoebe told him quickly, taking his arm and sounding insistent.

"Me? Whatever for?" he scoffed, albeit gently, though he thought he knew already. Phoebe needed money, and a new gentleman-protector.

"Apres votre navire a coulee… you' ship sink?" she explained. "An' you tell me, si chretien… so gently, concer-nant Barnaby, zen j'sais… I know vous 6tes l'homme, si prevenant et bienviellant. You 'ave ze kin'… considerate 'eart? D'avance, you waz toujours bonte avec moi, m'sieur Luray, ver' gentle an' kin'. Non speak severe to me, as putain. Toujours as la jeune dame, ze young lady! Si charmant et amu-sant!" She brightened, sounding almost wistful, but sobered quickly as she sped on with what Alan was certain was a tale of woe.

"Now I am… in ze trouble?" the girl coaxed. "Oh, merde alors, ze trouble terrible, m'sieur! D'abord, I s'ink of you, seulement… on'y? I come 'ere, 'ope you are 'ere, you le plus, of all ze Anglais Navy? You, mos' of all." Phoebe fought a flood of tears, snuffling again, wiping her nose on her mitten. "Eef you do not help me, m'sieur, I am los'! Mais… I know, you 'ave pity vers moi! I know you 'elp me!"

"Phoebe, uhm…" Lewrie sighed. "Look, it's so cold out here. Si froid? Let's go over there, through the dockyard gate, out of the wind." He picked up her traps, already beginning to regret it. Once in the lee of a stout stone wall, in more privacy, he turned to her. "Now, what sort of trouble are you in, petite Phoebe?"

"I am so effrayant, m'sieur Luray," she began, shivering with more than cold, stepping closer to him. "I mus' 'ave votre protection! Plais, mon Dieu, you weel protec' moi, plais?" the tiny mort entreated, her soft brown eyes huge in a pinched little gamine face. "Les Republicans, les sans culottes…" she sneered for a moment, almost spit upon the pavement despite her fear, "les paysans connardes, wan zey reprendront… zey tak' Toulon, I die. Mais oui, I know zis! Merde alors, zey keel me! On mes murs et ma porte… walls an' door? Les sales patriotes, zey write: 'ere reside une peau de vache degueu-lasse, la sale putain des ennemies Britanniques cracra'! Zat I am ze traitresse?" She weakened and began to wail helplessly, though still with an undercurrent of anger and resentment. "La sale putain des aristos, hein?"

"Whoa, slowly," Alan said, trying to translate her rushed words. Cow's hide? Bitch of a hide, disgusting… with puke, or merely filthy?

She reached for his hands and took them in hers, drawing him near for safety, imploring, jerking at them as a petulant child might in punctuation. "Zey regardent, zey watch me? Leave me lettres, oh, les lettres, ca pue la fauve! Avec tableaux… peekt'r of ze guillotine, m'sieur! Oh, plais! Je ne comprend pas… I 'urt no one, I am pauvre petite fille de joie seulement, I geeve no offence. Concierge, she t'row me out, ce soir she fin' 'er… patriotisme! I 'ave nulle autre part… now'ere else to be safe. An' I am so effrayant, m'sieur! J'suis dans la merde!"

"You need a place to stay," he replied, "to hide? Cacher?"

"Ah, oui!" Phoebe insisted, brightening at once, almost bouncing on her toes. "Et aussi…" she posed, taking on a shy but coy mien, all but biting her lip as she continued to gaze upward trustfully.

Here it comes, he sighed to himself, the hand on my purse.

"Wan you partez, you leave Toulon…?" she dared to whisper up at him, head cocked most fetchingly. "You weel take pauvre Phoebe?"

That wasn't quite the request he'd expected from her.

She stepped closer, insinuating her arms inside his cloak round his waist, claiming shelter and warmth, with her thin young face turned up to his. "You tak' me aller de Toulon? Away? Aidez-moi to… flee? You are in Navy, you 'ave les ships! Wan ze time come, ze royalistes… zey run? But zey will 'ave no room for me. 'Elle est la putain cracra seulement,' zey will say." She began to weep at the injustice of it all. "On'y ze dirty little whore? An' ze Republicains… zey accusent, aussi, an' chop off ma tete! I beg you, m'sieur, let me stay viz you? You protec' me? An' tu mettez-moi… put me on ship?"

"Uhm," he softened, slipping his arms around her instinctively, though dubious of "adopting" her. "Keep you, and all?"

"Ah, oui, s'il vous plait, m'sieur Alain!" she pleaded, looking up at him, her chin resting on his breastbone, her waifs eyes pleading as beguilingly as an orphaned kitten's.

"Je regrette, ma petite Phoebe…" he muttered, thinking of his few coins, and how far yet they might have to stretch. "Je suis pauvre, aussi. Un peu de monnaie? Apres our ship… sank? Went down? I have so little money, now."

"Je m'en fiche," she declared, her little face solemn. "Do not… care? You 'ave la salle chaude, ze warr-um room? Un peu de vin, et du pain? A little monnaie, c'est bien. No monnaie, c'est bien, aussi. You are ze homme seul, et moi, I am ze jeune fille, 'lone, aussi. Be kin' an' genereux to me, on'y un peu, et moi… I am generous a vous, hein? Quand, je serai votre jeune fille. Zan, I am your…"

Damme, the price sounds right, he thought; and she is a pretty little thing. Cundums! Well, my new'uns ain't Mother Green's Finest-they're Frog. But I s'pose they know what they're about when it comes to amour. The others, though, Cony and all… they'll see her go up with me, and what'U they think… and just who gives a bloody damn any longer?

He looked down into her face searchingly. Though her belly was pressed against his in promise, her gaze was so forlorn, yet hopeful, her eyes aswim with tears. For fear of his rejection, and her Fate if he did turn her away. He felt his resolves slipping. Again.

"God save me," he whispered in surrender. "Know what your name means, Phoebe?"

"Je ne sais pas, m'sieur," she replied softly, putting all her kitteny fondness into her voice, sensing his agreement at last.

"It means 'sunshine' in Latin," he chuckled, giving in to her neediness. And his own. "Like a happy sun? Comme le soleil heureux."

She tittered, smiled at last, and took a moment to wipe her nose and eyes on her mittens, then threw her arms around his neck. "D'accord, m'sieur Alain? You protec' me? Nous demeurons… reside, ensemble?'

"Oui," he nodded, with a sheepish grin. "We demeurons, ensemble."

"Ooh!" she cried suddenly, bouncing on her toes to hug him and giggle with relief. "You are Fhomme tees sympathique, so good, so gentil, si magnifique! Je suis si heureuse… so 'appy! An' I mak' you so 'appy, aussi, quand… wan ve… coucherons, ensemble," Phoebe vowed suggestively. "Aimes-tu la coucher, Alain?"

"Oui," he chuckled. "Mais oui, beaucoup!"

"An' wan you leave Toulon," she paused, inquiring of him more closely for an instant, leaning back warily to see if all particulars of their bargain were sure, like any level-headed woman of business. "Et… ve sail way, ensemble, aussi, Alain?"

"Oui, I swear. I'll get you on a ship, when the time comes, ma petite jolie Phoebe. Swear? Promise? Uh, croyez-vous. Believe me."

He gathered up her bags, those two items bearing all her worldly goods. He led her into the courtyard of the guardhouse, past a sentry who first gaped, then averted his eyes. Up the stairs past the few men idling and yarning in the guardroom, daring them to gawp at him. Into his room, where he shut the door on all outside distraction and curiosity.

He lit a candle as she doffed her cloak and mittens and thawed herself at the small fireplace's grate. There was a bottle of cognac on the scarred, rickety night stand by the bed. Only one glass, which he filled for her, which she accepted eagerly. He drank from the neck, listening to the rising winds as they rattled the shutters. Someone-Cony perhaps-had been thoughtful enough to obtain a warming pan for the bed, and had set out a covered dish; a quarter-loaf of bread with a hank of sausage. She devoured it ravenously, child-cheerful, as he put the warming pan back on the grate and removed coat and waist-coat.

They hung their clothing on wall pegs, suddenly sombre and shy with each other, after she was done eating. She smiled at him as she pinched out the candle, and shooed him to turn around so she could undress completely.

"M… maintenant, mon cheri," she said at last, faint and shaky.

"Bloody…" he gasped as he turned about to look at her.

She stood nude on her knees in the middle of the bed, whore-bold. Yet as shy, as nervous and giggly as a virgin might on her first night of marriage, totally feckless and artless at that moment, without a jot of a whore's weariness, pouting boredom or experience.

Her light olive skin was dark against the pale sheets, caressed by flickers of firelight, her hair a long, curling, dark brown cascade down her back to her waist, over her shoulders, half-concealing breasts small but well formed, almost perky. So slim and neat, so girlish and tiny she looked, almost thin…

"J'ai froid, mon cheri," she shuddered in a wee voice as she hugged herself for a moment, her eyes huge with want "Viens a moi… come to me? Depeches, vite?" she implored, stretching out her arms for him.

He rushed to the bed to embrace her, to kneel close to her, run his hands hungrily over her velvety firm young flesh, feeling her goosepimple at his touch. "Si belle, tu es si belle, si petite, si…!" he praised. "Such a beautiful little pretty!"

"You mak' me warr-um, Alain?" she shivered, somewhere between a nervous laugh and a helpless plea. "You keep me safe an' warr-um, mon gentilhomme fantastique?" She leaned back from his kisses to take his face in her little hands to regard him, to force him to regard her, for a serious instant. "Alors, a toi, je donne tout, mon coeur. Zen my all… I give to you? Mon corps… mon coeur, moi-meme!" she whispered in touching tears that scalded as they splashed on his cheeks as they kissed again.

They fell into the warmed bed, hurling the covers up to their chins, burrowing eagerly into the welcome warmth of press-hot sheets, grasping to clasp their warming flesh together, beginning to chuckle and sigh, to simper and giggle like goose-girl and stableboy.

When did she learn my given name, he idly wondered, too busy for much real thought as they rolled and interlaced, limbs twining as sinuous as snakes, mouths pressed together, stroking and exploring… Scott? Must have told her. She was always friendly enough… amusing and anxious to please. To fit in. Hang everything, he decided. Just all of it-hands, the war, the siege, all of it! Just a few nights, for the love of Heaven.

"Ma belle," he sighed in her ear, lost once more, humours ablaze as he nuzzled and savoured, afire for her and nothing else but a few precious moments of sweet, tumbling oblivion. "Ma petite. Oui, I'll keep you warm. Je fais tu chaud… and safe."

"Oh, mon cheri," she swore, going breathless. "Mon coeur… mon amour! Aimes-moi!"

To seal her bargain, to coax him or cajole him, to winnow her way into his sympathy and affection to hold him to it, she repaid him in the only coin she had left, or perhaps understood. But with passion so intense, so open and eager, so far beyond a coquette's artful practice, that he could not believe her giving of herself so completely was totally feigned, towards the end especially. Panting on his shoulder, tears in her eyes, kisses deep and searing, softly lingering and full of gentleness and seeming affection. As if, for a time at least, the girl could shut the door on her own very real fears for her future. Phoebe had as much need as anyone to abandon herself, deny the terrifying world outside, and sink mindlessly and carefree into a sweet oblivion of her own, surrender time and time again to pleasures so imperative that rife beyond her body's sensations had no terrors which could even compare.

And sleep, at last, draped half over him, her head resting on his chest, clinging in her sleep as doggedly as he had to his raft, so light and sweet, so soft and toasty warm, with her hair spilled like a quilt over them. Sleeping peacefully, purring gentle and slow, twined about him. Completely spent yet happy.

Dreaming perhaps? he wondered as he drowsed alongside, his arms cocooning her. What did whores dream about, anyway? Her world was so narrow, so limited, and she such a willow branch to any wind that blew… did she dream of safety, new gowns, a little place to call her own? Of surviving long enough to continue her same narrow life?

He glanced at his new watch on the night stand by the firelight. Another cheap piece o' work. Just gone eleven, he yawned, completely, utterly spent himself. Yet happy as well, in his own way.

Whatever it'd been-a young whore's practiced arts to earn her passage, or a frightened girl's exquisite gratitude, some small measure of true affection and desire at last awakened-who knew, he asked the ceiling. It had been bestial, magnificent… tender. And grand.

He slept himself, then. As the skies opened and a cold sullen rain began to fall, slashing at the besieged port, driven by a half-gale of wind. Pattering and rattling on the shutters, drumming on the roof slates, making him glad he wasn't at sea on such a fearsome night.

He slept at last as real, natural thunder growled and rumbled, forcing him to nestle closer to Phoebe, to clasp her tighter and feel her reply with a snugger hug of her own as he rolled nearer. As a far-off storm voice marched closer and mingled itself with the dolorous drumming of guns.