Havoc`s Sword

PROLOGUE

Gaudent perfusi sanguine fratrum;

exsilioque domos et dulcia limina mutant

atque alio patrium quaerunt sub sole iacentem

Gleefully they steep themselves in their brothers' blood;

for exile they change their sweet homes and hearths

and seek a country that lies beneath an alien sun.

– Georgics, Book II, 510-512

Publius Vergilius Maro

Clerk Etienne de Gougne heaved a fretful sigh after surveying the large salon, just off the equally seedy entrance hall of the commandeered mansion. With grips still in hand, and rolled up charts still crammed under his arm-pits, he squinted his eyes in dread of the tirade to come once Le Capitaine saw the place. He wished that just once he had had the tiniest dash of courage; else, his master's transfer to Guadeloupe, and this foetid clime, could have been his excuse to enter the service of some other official, perhaps even in his own beloved and exhilarating Paris, instead of letting himself be meekly dragged, ever demeaned and terrified, from one arse-end of the world to another.

Etienne de Gougne could smirk, though, in his mousy little way, that the bulk of Le Capitaine'?, wrath would fall upon the person who'd chosen this abandoned mansion so blithely and carelessly, the despised Lieutenant de Vaisseau Jules Hainaut, for once, the swaggering poseur, that jumped-up lout, that…!

"God's Noodle, what a pig-sty!" Lt. Hainaut said from the doorway, making the little clerk "Eep" in sudden dread, drop his precious charts in a hollow, "bonking" jumble, his grips thudding to the floor, and making him spin about.

"Oh! Lieutenant, don't do that, I beg you," de Gougne said as he bent to gather his things; though secretly pleased to see the look of consternation on the handsome young sprig's face as he realised his error.

"Good Christ," Lt. Jules Hainaut breathed, taking in just how shabby the interior was; when it had looked so promising and grand in his too-brief visit the day before, when he'd stood on the veranda and had merely peeked in through the smutted window panes, assuming…!

"This won't do," Hainaut stated, shaking his head, "no, not at all. You'd better get our gang of noirs to muck all this out before Le Capitaine arrives, little mouse."

Ordering the timid clerk about always made Hainaut feel better. He stalked into the salon, elegant and expensive new boots drumming on the loose wood-parquet floor, savouring the creak-squeak of excellently made leather. His left hand grasped the hilt of his ornately chased smallsword, his right hand fisted to his hip, the arm akimbo, his mind scheming quickly on how to recover from this disaster.

This spacious salon on the east side of the house had lost its window panes, and the winds and rains had gotten in, along with a scattering of leaves, palm fronds, and red-brown, wooly furze off the tropical trees. The window shutters hung nearly paintless, scabbed, broken-slatted and crooked. A skift of bright glass shards littered the floor, along with a few dead birds and a skeletal rat, now collapsed upon itself, and swarming with ants. Even as Hainaut fanned himself in the closeness of the airless salon with his gilt-laced fore-and-aft bicorne hat, he saw a lizard of some kind scuttle from the shutters to seize a cockroach nigh as big as his thumb, and he could hear the 'crunch' all the way across the room. To make things even worse, an entire flotilla, a whole shoal of cockroaches, fled at that seizure from beneath a torn and tilt-legged sofa to flood along the baseboard, before swirling beneath it like a spill of dark ale!

Jules Hainaut knew that he was in trouble; Le Capitaine would have him strangled for such carelessness, for heaping one more demeaning slight upon him, after the several he had suffered from the local officials since they had come ashore on Guadeloupe.

Working for Le Capitaine was rewarding at times, profitable in monetary matters and the best of confiscated or "commandeered" goods… such as his ornate sword, which formerly had been the property of an elderly junior admiral without the proper zeal and ruthlessness of a true revolutionary. " You wish it? Take it," Le Capitaine had told Hainaut after the court-martial for failure and Royalist sentiments, as it lay on the judge's table after the guilty party had been hauled out- blade exposed and point toward the doomed, signifying a verdict of guilty.

Rewarding and pleasing for Jules Hainaut, too, was the aura of fear he could create by merely stating whom he worked for, trading on Le Capitaine's dread reputation. His new boots the cobbler had made gratis, pouring heart and soul into the workmanship and materials as if his life had depended on it. His uniforms, if not free, were gotten at a large, shuddery, discount.

But, his superior didn't suffer fools or slackers gladly, and more than one promising and well-connected young officer had had his head lopped off for less. Now, what to do, what to do? Hainaut dithered, all the while in an outward pose of a man with few cares, but for this mere trifle.

Jumped-up, foreign farm-hand! Clerk de Gougne silently sneered as he gathered up his traps; can't even speak good French, he circumspectly scoffed with a Parisian's disdain for anything provincial, or anyone born outside La Belle France.

Jules Hainaut no longer looked it, but he had been born a farmboy, in the Austrian Netherlands, his parents the sketchiest sort of "outlander" French. He'd fled potato-grubbing early, had gone to sea at fourteen, still nigh-illiterate, and had drifted into the old Royal French Navy just before the start of the Revolution.

Just a lowly matelot with grandiose dreams of being somebody or something, some day, he'd seen quickly how the prevailing winds stood, and had gladly (if not wholeheartedly) embraced Republicanism and the Jacobism of the sans culottes as a way to advance himself. He bought a tricolour revolutionary's cockade and red-wool tassel cap, and had worn them with outward pride, had shouted "Down with the Aristos" the loudest, and had ridden the coat-tails of the Terror, helping to purge the navy of Royalists and aristocrats, earning a share of the loot taken from them, moving up in rank, in "dead men's shoes." For once, his lack of education, his humble beginnings, and his outlandness had worked for him, for he was held up as a shining example of how the ideals of the Revolution would spread all round the world and conquer the old order.

Most of the rhetoric was Greek to Hainaut, just loud twaddle to be tolerated-but it paid well to listen and cheer. And the raids and arrests, as a "virtuous" commoner armed to the teeth and given the awesome power of weaponry over the rich, the titled, and their minions and lick-spittle servants, was a heady thing, indeed. And the cheers!

Escorting accused prisoners through the seaport streets, eyes open for the prettiest women and girls who threw corsages, and now and then themselves, at such a well-knit and stalwart young patriot. Then, when he had been urged to turn informer and spy upon suspect shipmates, surviving officers, and town citizens, and he'd come to court to testify, tricked out in his scrubbed-up, borrowed best, Hainaut had gotten even more favourable attention… from the young female citizens most of all!

After all, it wasn't as if the people he'd testified against were all that innocent, and if he hadn't done it, there were two dozen more eager to make names for themselves standing in line behind him, so what did it matter when "traitors" were trundled to the guillotines in the big tumbrils, to fill the baskets with their heads. They were not family, they weren't friends of his, and most had been unattractive or outright ugly, or simply not clever enough to keep their mouths shut and dissemble the latest revolutionary cant, which could change from month to month as the various factions in the Assembly rose or fell.

Hainaut had advanced to the rank of Timmonier, the trusty Coxswain to a rising young star of a Lieutenant who had come up from the lower deck, just as he had. He ate better than most, drank very well, and had first pick of the loot, could make a pig of himself every night of the week, and had thought he had risen high… when he had met the man who would change his life.

He knew he'd met real power when his Lieutenant had nearly shat his culottes in fear of him after one interview. He knew he'd met the consummate unscrupulous cynic, out to use the Revolution to claw back his former honours and position; and, perhaps, Le Capitaine had seen a fellow spirit in Hainaut, despite his outward protestations of adoration for the Revolution.

That quickly, he'd become an Aspirant entitled to wear steel on his hip, not a crude seaman's cutlass, but a midshipman's dirk of honour, even if his uniform had been a rag-picker's off-day ensemble. Hainaut had thrown himself into pleasing Le Capitaine during the purging of the Bordeaux fleet, and later in the Mediterranean, when they ran the infiltrating spy-boats, the coastal raiding ships, and small convoys to support the army facing the Piedmontese, the Genoese, Neapolitan, and much-vaunted Austrian armies.

And it hadn't been Hainaut 's fault when his small warship under an idiot captain had been taken by the British, when Le Capitaine had trusted him to supervise the mission, and "wet his feet" as a fighting sailor. A few weeks on parole on Corsica (rather pleasant, that!) and he'd been exchanged for a British midshipman, and warmly welcomed back into Le Capitaine'?, service-though the idiot had gotten "chopped" for failure!

Now Jules Hainaut was a seasoned Lieutenant de Vaisseau, polished and groomed, tutored and "pampered," and, did he continue pleasing his superior, the aspirations of commanding a small warship, later becoming a Capitaine de Vaisseau in charge of a tall, swift frigate of his own, were not beyond his reach.

If he survived this little disaster!

And it certainly looked hopeless.

Lt. Hainaut damned the Governor-General, Citizen Victor Hugues, for this insult. There were much nicer mansions to be had in the neat little community of Bas Fort, and much closer to the local seat of power, too. He suspected that Governor-General Hugues (a light-skinned Mulatto gens du couleur, but still a noir, Lt. Hainaut accused!) wanted to show how unimpressed he was by the arrival of Le Capitaine, a possible rival for his position, or a spy for the Directory, despite all their fulsome introductory letters from Paris.

Fanning himself some more, Lt. Hainaut paced about in the foyer, admiring the gloss of his boot-toes, testing the formerly shiny Cuban mahoghany inlaid parquet. With a preparatory sigh of disappointment, Hainaut went to the double doors of the west-side salon, which were barely ajar; pocket doors, which hissed into their recesses barely at a touch, of the finest craftsmanship.

"Ah! Better!" he cheered. Drapes still hung, the windows were still glazed, chandeliers were still whole, and the furniture was worn but useable; in point of fact, this second salon was jam-packed with a jumble of furniture, as if two or three other mansions had been looted and the contents stored in this one! And behind the salon was a room of equal spaciousness, filled with several sets of dining room furnishings. Hainaut doubted there would be plates, cutlery, or serving pieces in there, but they'd brought their own, enough to serve for a few weeks 'til another "warehouse" of confiscated goods could be "shopped."

"Garcon chef!" Hainaut barked over his shoulder, to summon the "head boy" of the work-gang they had been loaned. "Ici, vite!"

"Oui, bas?" he answered when he came.

"This salon will be my master's private office," Hainaut said, briskly rubbing his hands in relief. "That dining room, there. Clean it out. It will become Le Maitres bed-chamber, comprendre? Office, here… bed-chamber, there, hein?"

"Oui, bas. Je comprend," the solidly built man responded.

"Send garcons above-stairs. Surely, there's bed furniture. Find best, and fetch it down, to… there," Hainaut instructed, pointing up, then to the dining room. "Bedding and such… comprendre literies, hein?" he said in pidgin French, since he hadn't heard passable French from the island Blacks since stepping ashore; they uttered a soft, and liquid, Creole patois.

"Oui, bas, comprend la literie," the headman assured him, talking as slowly as Hainaut, as if to covertly twit him back. "Pillows, sheets, and mattresses. Send boys for the best. Make house nouveau clean… tout d'abord," he vowed. "Be tres elegant."

"It had better be," Hainaut said with a miffed sniff, unfamiliar with noirs, but suspecting that he was slyly being japed. "Some men to sickle the grass, prune the bushes, too. Re-hang the shutters, there," he said, pointing again. "Paint walls, if paper is hopeless. Nail the parquet down. Floor? Loose floor pieces, hein? Make smooth?"

"Ah, oui" the gang leader replied, with a resigned shrug.

"All done by sundown, comprendre!"' Hainaut gleefully insisted.

The noir winced and sucked his teeth, but nodded assent.

"That room, there… be office for the little mouse clerk," Lt. Hainaut slyly instructed. "Small bed-cot, unbroken desk, and chest of drawers. Nothing good, mind. Well, get cracking. Vite, vite!"

Hainaut turned and trotted up the staircase, without a thought for the herculean task he'd just assigned, and did they not get it all presentable, well… too bad for the garcon chef! That was what whips were good for, Hainaut casually supposed, pour encourager les autres, so they saw the price of failure. Even Hugues, part-Black himself, had kept a form of slavery on Guadeloupe after the noirs had been "freed." Poorly paid, closely supervised labour gangs might not emulate the bloody massacres of former masters that had torn Saint Domingue to shreds. Idle hands were the Devil's workshop!

"Magnifique! Hainaut whispered on entering the former master's and mistress's chambers on the east side front. It was bigger than the salon below it, fronted by a deep, cool balcony and two sets of double doors, with separate shutter doors on the outside. The imported furnishings were suitable for a rich aristo's Paris maison; settees, chairs and draperies in expensive moire silks, elegantly carved night-tables, card tables, and chairs, lamp stands… with no windows facing the Nor'east Trades, the room had stayed pristine, despite being rifled.

"Garcon chef up here, vite!" Hainaut barked.

A younger, scrawnier noir trotted into the chamber, the leader's assistant, the sous-chef d'equipage. "Oui, bas?" he asked.

"Run tell your chef that all this goes downstairs to my master's bedchamber. Second-best from the other front room, move in here, for me. I'll take this room, comprendre:'"

"Uhh," this one answered, scratching his pate. "Too fast…"

"Dammit!" Hainaut snapped impatiently, seizing the man by his arm to lead him to the other bed-chamber, shoving him inside. "Furnishings of here, move to grand chamber. Furnishings in chambre grande you move below, comprendre, hein? Du verdammte dreckig Monstrositat?" he swore, unconsciously falling back on the bastard German of his youth.

"Exchange, oui, bas?" the Black supposed, in a sullen voice.

"Oui, damn you… exchange."

"Ah, mais oui… rapidement!" the slave beamed.

"Go do it, then… rapidement" Hainaut disgustedly sneered.

He strode back to the grand bed-chamber to savour his new digs, fanning with his hat some more, walking out on the wide balcony, where tall trees shaded him from the morning sun, where woven cane chaises and side-tables awaited, and a spectacular view presented itself. And he could have sworn that the temperature dropped a quick ten degrees or more, in obedience to the Trade winds.

He tipped trash from a cane chair and sat down, thinking it was a mortal pity that his grand new bed-chamber could never be used for sport, but his master was… touchy, when it came to seeing his aide taking pleasures under his very nose, while his own tastes were so… outre. Darker recollections made Hainaut shiver. His master taking pleasure was not something he would ever wish to see; things best left in the dark, in prison cellars, with the younger, weaker, and frailer girls, the better. Mon Dieu, merde alors! Hainaut silently quailed, as some of the work gang came up to begin moving things around at his bidding.

Well, with his naval salary and Le Maitre's now-and-then admiring largesse, he could hire a tiny but elegant pied-a-terre room in one of the better harbour lodgings for sport. And his off-duty, moment-of-arising view would be splendid, at any rate.

Guadeloupe was nearly two islands, pinched in to a narrow causeway just north and west of Pointe-a-Pitre's environs that linked Grande-Terre, on which he stood, and Basse-Terre. Grande-Terre ran East-West, low and lushly verdant despite its exposure to the Nor'east Trades, all the way to Pointe des Chateaux and the farther islet of Desirade where dark Atlantic rollers met the turquoise Caribbean.

Basse-Terre ran North-South, also incredibly green but mountainous, dominated by the peak of the dormant volcano La Soufriere, tilled as orderly as terrace farms round Marseilles, its shore fringed with a series of neat little villages and white-sand beach hamlets along its eastern, windward shore across the great harbour in which he stood.

Petit-Bourg, Ste.-Marie, where Christopher Columbus was reputed to have first landed, Capesterre Belle-Eau south of there, before the coastline curved about Sou'west, hiding Trois Rivieres, the Vieux Fort, and the other, lee-side harbour of Basse-Terre.

So beautiful, Hainaut marvelled, so pleasingly alien, for once. After the bleakness of the rocky, wave-punched coasts of Europe; Biscay waters, Baltic, the German Sea, or Le Maitres beloved Channel ports in Brittany, even the softer Mediterranean or Italian shores, this was wondrous.

A grand view, he thought; it would have to suffice. And did Le Maitres plans spin out in even somewhat proper order, or yield success in half the measure he'd schemed, he would be worked so hard that a view might be all the satisfaction a harried aide might have.

Though it had taken a fair number of kicks and slaps, the house was ready for its new master's arrival. The jingle and rumble of the coach – and – four on the roundabout sand-shell drive brought out Hainaut, de Gougne, and the most docile, willing, and least threatening Blacks whom Hainaut had decided to employ. They had been sluiced down at the well in the back yard and hurriedly garbed in clean slop-clothing, to stand muster by the drive. Enticing aromas from the separate cooking shed wafted coach-ward, tall beeswax candles fluttered in the windows, and both closed lanthorns and open torches beamed welcoming cheer from the drive and the wide, deep veranda.

The coach rocked to a stop and an armed guard in the uniform of Naval Infantry leaped down from the boot to fold down the metal step and open the near-side door before springing to rigid attention, his musket unslung and held at Present Arms, his face a patient blank no matter that the senior passenger took half an hour to alight; and God help the man who innocently sprang to assist him!

The fingers of a left hand curled about the door frame, a brass tip on a stout ebony walking-stick, then a man's right boot emerged, blindly groping for the step, as someone grunted to shift his weight.

"Zut! Beurk! Ouf, aile! Merde alors! Horreur… une bete!" Weak cries of alarm sussurated from the aligned Blacks, who to a man crossed themselves or made warding signs against the Evil Eye, wailing "Le Diable!" and making Hainaut turn to cuff or curse them to worshipful silence.

Le Maitre-Le Capitaine-in Paris and Toulon Le Hideux but never in his or his minion's hearing-alit at last, standing on his own feet, surveying the house front with a suspicious scowl.

Clump, shuffle, tick… clump, shuffle, tick on the firmly laid pavers of the sand-and-brick walk between the freshly pruned flowering bougainvillea, as Capitaine de Vaisseau Guillaume Choundas made a torturous way forward. His right foot in a regular high-topped boot almost demanded firm ground before the ham-strung left leg in an iron-braced-and-bound boot swished limply ahead, with the bright brass ferrule of the stout walking-stick swung out ahead for balance, to ring against the stones.

Guillaume Choundas's right sleeve was pinned up high under his heavily gilt epaulette, folded so it displayed gold buttons and wide oak-leaf embroidery, near where a sergeant would show chevrons. It was a full-dress coat more suited to a junior admiral, but very few in the Caribbean (or Europe, either) would dare to question his right to wear it. More gilt oak-leaf showed on the high red collar, and on the thighs of his dark blue breeches, too.

A large and elaborate bicorne hat slashed fore-and-aft atop his head, raked aggressively low over his eyes; eight centimeters of gold edge lace, loop and button and tassels gilt as well, with a tricolore cockade on one side, and blue-white-red egret plumes nodding above the crease. Below the hat, though…

Capitaine Choundas's face was half-covered with a stiffened silk mask that disguised a cruel, deep-scarred ruin, the result of a ghastly wound suffered long ago, a sword cut that had slashed upwards to slice one eye and his brow in half almost vertically, shattered the eye socket, chopped off one nostril and X-ed both lips to a horror worthy of an Hieronymous Bosch painting of a demon. The mask had been expanded lately to cover the nose completely, but there was no concealing the split lips that had healed in a rictus of rage.

"Welcome, mon Capitaine!" Hainaut exclaimed, stepping off the veranda to greet him and sweep an arm to encompass the house. "All is ready for you, in your grand new lodgings! Supper will be served just as soon as you wish, m'sieur!"

"As I expected, cher Jules," Choundas replied, almost registering pleasure for a glimmering moment, that just as quickly disappeared, "given your zeal. Though I have not yet seen inside… hein?" he came close to almost making a jest. "These dumb beasts are to be our house servants?" he concluded with a normal frown.

"Such as they are, m'sieur. Best of a poor lot," Hainaut told him, with a disparaging Gallic shrug. "I returned those that did not please to Governor Hugues, to make what use of them he will. Do a few more officials arrive in need of servants, he'll be reduced to the very dregs of the government supply, n'est-ce pas, mon Capitaine?" he concluded with a devious simper.

"Think I am Le Diable, do you?" Choundas asked the Blacks lined up for inspection, almost jovially, soft-voiced, as he clump-ticked to within a few feet of them, making them shrink back a pace. He removed his hat, baring florid ginger-red hair. "Ah, mais oui" he said with a shrug. Hat tucked under his good arm, he lifted the mask. "I am!" he thundered, making the Blacks whine, cringe, visibly shake, and almost piss their slop-trousers.

"I will be served with alacrity, with diligence, and with quiet! The one who raises his voice inside, who annoys me, he'll be flayed to his bones and fed to the sharks… alive! Do not make me take notice of you, comprendes? You've had your one curious look, and last winces! The next one of you who looks at me askance and even thinks that I am disgusting I will have boiled in hot tar and crucified, head-down!"

He let the mask drop back into place, shuffled its seating, and thrust his hat back onto his head.

"You had better fear me, mon garcons" he threatened, "and do my bidding as quietly and un-noticed as mice. Now, go! Allei, vite!"

They scampered in a twinkling.

Pleased with himself, Choundas turned once more to Lt. Hainaut. "Let us see what you have accomplished, Jules. By the way, we will be having dinner guests. You know the gallant Capitaine Desplan?"

"But of course, maitre. Capitaine Desplan? Welcome," Hainaut piped up to the captain of the Le Bouclier frigate, as if they hadn't spent nearly six weeks aboard her, in cheek-to-jowl company.

Choundas stomped up to the wood veranda while Hainaut made his welcomes to the other captains of their acquaintance off the 20-gunned corvettes that had escorted their older 28-gun frigate and a storeship; Capitaine de Fregate Griot of Le Gascon, a stout little fellow of dark features, and the much taller and paler Capitaine de Fregate MacPherson off Za Resolue, an emigre Jacobite Scot whose family had fled to France after the failure of Bonnie Prince Charlie Stuart in 1745.

Another officer, a mere Lieutenant de Vaisseau, had alit from the carriage, too, one who hung back shyly. "Et vous, m'sieur!"'

"That is Lieutenant Recamier, Jules," Choundas informed him as he stood, impatiently rapping his stick on the veranda to hurry them inside. "Formerly of the schooner L'Incendiare. He is most familiar with Caribbean waters, and has a most intriguing tale to tell. After dessert and brandy, we must avail ourselves of his experience. Come, messieurs … let us share a glass of wine, and discover what an island cook can do with victuals."

Ah, him! Hainaut thought with malicious glee, having read afteraction reports of L'Incendiare 's loss. It was no wonder that the poor fellow was diffident! Hainaut wasn't sure whether Lt. Recamier was to be the main course, the dessert, or the postprandial entertainment.

"Bienvenu, M'sieur Recamier," he said, though, putting his best face of ignorant affability on, and extending a proper Republican hand to shake. "I trust you'll enjoy our offerings for supper."

They had sailed with an extensive wine cellar, and the casks and crates had been ashore long enough for ship-stirred lees to settle, or be carefully filtered when decanted, so Choundas set a good table. Lt. Hainaut saw to that. The soup was a bland, cool celery broth, the fish a fresh-caught pompano served with a local delicacy, crabes farcis. A locally grown salad course with onions, cucumbers, and carrots, zested with vinaigrette and lime juice. The main course chickens were on the tough, small, and stringy side, on a rice pilaf, still on the bone, but for Choundas's plate, which had been picked off and diced for easier one-handed eating. A touch dry and over-cooked, pan-fried, but enlivened with enough exotic hot sauces and Caribbean spices to make an equivalent to a Hindee curry, normally used to mask a tainted dish.

Hainaut, Griot, Desplan, and MacPherson dug in with a will, delighted with fresh shore viands after weeks of salt-meat junk, sending servants back for more crisp and piping-hot baguettes time after time, after the dreary monotony of stale or weeviled ship's biscuit.

Choundas occupied the head of the table, with Capitaine Desplan in the place of honour to his right, and Griot to his left. Recamier was to Griot's left, opposite Hainaut, and-two empty chairs down- at the foot of the table sat poor clerk Etienne de Gougne.

The little clerk abstemiously took wee bites, then chewed seemingly forever before swallowing, before the tiniest sips of wine.

Hainaut had seen to it that his dishes had been over-seasoned, knowing the timid little clerk's penchant for the blander and creamier Parisian cooking. Each bite seemed a torture of Hell-fire, though he would be loath to do or say a thing about it. And if he pushed his plate away, he wouldn't get anything else!

Lt. Recamier was another spare diner and imbiber, as if trying to keep his wits about him and hope to be forgotten, perhaps. Sooner or later, though, Le Maitre would get around to him, Hainaut was sure.

"Stupid waste of the fleet," Choundas groused, on his favourite peeve for the umpteenth time, "when it would have been better to work them up with weeks of training at sea, before gadding off on their adventures. We will never meet the biftecks on an equal footing until our seamanship and our cooperation between ships and senior officers markedly improves. Been that way for years," Choundas groused, shoving his food about his plate with his specially made all-in-one utensil, a pewter fork and spoon on one end, and a thin scoop on the other. "In the aristo navy," he sneered, "we swung at anchor most of the time, convenient to shore comforts, and got sent out on overseas adventures by foppish, ignorant fools, trusting that time on-passage would smooth out the rough spots. What idiocy!"

"If only our superiors would have heeded your suggestions, mon Capitaine" Desplan of Le Bouclier sympathised, toadying up agreeably, as was his wont since they had first set foot on his decks.

"One devoutly wishes that you could be appointed to the Ministry, Capitaine Choundas," the dark-visaged, hawk-nosed Griot suggested. "Scourge out the useless place-keepers, and put real sailors in charge."

They were so obsequious that Hainaut had to stifle a groan of derision. Toadying was pointless for Griot. He was a Breton, one of Le Maitre's fabled Celts, descended from the bold seafarers of Brittany, of the same blood as Choundas, scions of the ancient Veneti. To hear Choundas tell it (and endlessly re-tell it!) the Veneti had been deep-water sailors in their stout oak ships, as daring as the Phoenicians, and might have crossed the trackless oceans to discover the New World long before Columbus; who had almost out-fought Julius Caesar's fleet of eggshell-thin, coast-hugging, oared triremes during the Gallic Wars.

No, Griot had no need to lick Le Maitre'?, arse; his heritage was his pass to promotion and favour.

Desplan, too. Before the Revolution, Desplan had been a mere midshipman, a commoner who could not expect to rise much higher than Lieutenant de Vaisseau in royal service without money, connections, or the rare chance to shine with a spectacular feat of derring-do gaining him notice at the royal court. Desplan, however, was from Quimper, a fluent speaker of the ancient Breton tongue that King Louis's officials had fought to suppress. He and Capt. Choundas had slanged whole afternoons away on-passage, Desplan even daring to compose heroic poems set in the glorious old days-then read them… aloud), first in Breton, then in French for the unenlightened.

Capitaine MacPherson, though… hmmm, Hainaut considered, giving him a perusal under his lashes as he took a long sip of vin ordinaire. The man was tall, lean, and raw-boned, as gingery-blond as Choundas, but more weathered, his skin more amenable to harsh sunlight. Scottish; ergo, some sort of Celt. But most unfortunately and overtly Catholic, of the most egregiously self-effacing and devout kind.

Not the best thing to be, or practice so openly, these days in a nation, under a regime, that had closed great cathedrals and tiny chapels, confiscated the great wealth and lands of Holy Mother Church, and turned them all into Temples of Reason, where the genius of Man was celebrated.

His corvette, La Resolue, was a smartly-run ship, though, kept in perfect trim, her crew intensely drilled and disciplined with a gruff fairness. Their stormy passage had proved MacPherson to be a tarry, hoary-handed "tarpaulin man" as the British, the "Bloodies," said. It was possible that MacPherson would prosper under Choundas's command… but never shine.

"… what Admiral de Brueys will accomplish with the Mediterranean fleet, well," Choundas was raspingly continuing. He stopped in mid-carp, pressed his napkin to his lips to stifle a belch, and bent at the waist as if in pain. "Mon Dieu, take this merde away!"

He shoved his plate halfway to the fruit compote on the glossy wood surface, and flung his all-in-one utensil after it in a sudden fit of rage. "Damned negres! All fire and peppers!" he gravelled, glaring at Hainaut as if it were his fault; making Hainaut cringe to think that his plate and the "loaded" one meant for de Gougne had been confused!

"She'll not do it again, m'sieur! Hainaut hotly vowed, rising. "I'll fetch you a blank-manger, at once, to ease you."

Le Maitre had been suffering stomach troubles ever since he had gotten his orders to sail for the Caribbean. Was his mentor ailing… was it something serious enough to threaten Hainaut's comfortable and lucrative billet? He dashed off towards the cooking shed.

"Oui, go!" Choundas snapped, stifling another painful burning and eructation. "And give that salope a whack or two as warning! Pardons, messieurs. Foreign service has ruined my trips as sure as grape-shot. I could almost savour Chinese cooking. Mandarin was best, subtle and elegant both in taste and presentation. Hoisin, from the far north, or Cantonese, though… all devil's piss, garlic and fire, bah! Does that negre cow's-hide mean to poison me?"

"It has been known to happen, m'sieur le Capitaine," Lt. Recamier spoke up for the first time in half an hour, still diffident. "Though it means the slaughter of the entire house-slave staff… if they are caught at it. Many an overly cruel master or mistress has died, under mysterious circumstances, in the islands. Sometimes, the 'witch' worked by Voudoun poisons are so subtle, even the ablest physicians can't say the cause was not natural. Les noirs have a thousand ways to get back at Europeans. Scorches on new clothing, pets gone missing, lost spoons… anything. Drip at a time, never anything worthy of a beating. I think your chinois would call it 'the death of a thousand cuts', n'est-ce pas? A drip-at-a-time water torture?"

"Indeed," Guillaume Choundas archly drawled back, though with a glint of sudden wariness in his good eye.

"Here you are, m'sieur" Hainaut said, returning with a dish of whipped and sweetened wheat flour. He retrieved the utensil, wiped it on his waist-coat, and handed it to Choundas.

After a few moments, and a few spoonfuls, Le Maitre seemed much eased, and the wary, uncomfortable silence ended. Hainaut returned to his own supper, enjoying its taste, even if it had cooled while he was away on his urgent errand.

"De Brueys," Choundas dyspeptically snapped, picking up where he had left off. "A cautious old fellow. Perhaps more suited to a shore or port command than a fighting fleet, hein? Too set in his ways, the old idle aristo ways. Needs everything just so, a set-piece that advances in understandable steps. We must thank our lucky stars, messieurs, that we are not part of his folly. That little tuft-hunter whose army he carries, General Bonaparte, is sure to overreach, and lead a great part of our navy into trouble. Better we take Malta as planned, land and conquer the Kingdom of Naples second, then cross and conquer Sicily, cutting the Mediterranean in two, before any farther efforts. Give the bifteck Admiral Jervis a real headache and run him back to Lisbon, again. Then, properly shaken down and trained in seamanship, the Adriatic, the Aegean Sea, and the Ottoman Turk lands could be ours by simply opening our hands to pluck them. Oui. Dearly as we would wish to partake in honour and glory for La Belle France, and the Revolution's expansion to all of Europe, we must be thankful that we are out here, where adventures just as grand await us."

Like proper little sychophants appreciative of their superior's acuity and bold strategic thinking, the diners almost stood to clap.

Hainaut didn't quite remember it that way. When orders had come from the five demi-gods who comprised the Directory in Paris, in point of fact, his master had raged and cursed, throwing things to the four winds, howling about Betrayal, Exile, and scourging the "New Men," the slimy-slick attorney-poseurs who'd supplanted the bold firebrands of the Revolution, shuffling those who'd worked the hardest off stage to be forgotten and dismissed without reward! A brace of prisoners in for minor offences had been half-dead before Le Maitre had spent his rage!

It was, though, the story of his master's embittered life, to be used as a cat's-paw to the rich and titled wastrels, even in the days when he was slim, stalwart, and handsome in his own fashion. Now it was exile to the Sugar Islands, where ugly, crippled embarassments could succumb to a myriad of plagues and fevers, un-looked-for and unloved!

Hainaut grimaced a tad, recalling Choundas's slim successes in the Mediterranean, his next thankless assignment to outfit General Humbert's expedition to Ireland in a squadron of frigates. It hadn't been his fault that Lord Cornwallis's army had cornered the small army of Humbert's, forcing its semi-honourable surrender, and a slaughter of its ill-armed, ill-trained Irish rebel auxiliaries…

Last year in the Batavian Republic, formerly Holland, training and encouraging jury-armed merchant ships into frigates and corvettes and scouting vessels… only to see the bifteck Admiral Duncan sweep them from the seas at the Battle of Camperdown, for the scouts failed their main body. That hadn't been his fault, either, but…

Hainaut wondered, again, whether he had hitched his waggon to an ill-favoured star, or remained in Choundas's harness perhaps too long. Did Le Maitre fail out here, this would be his last chance, and Hainaut could sink back into the pool of mediocre junior officers, living only on his meagre pay, with all hopes of future advancement blocked…

Choundas rang a tiny porcelain bell to summon dessert. Slaves rushed to dole out soft, doughy, and sugar-crusted pastry shells filled with fresh local berries sopping in heavy whipped cream. Dessert wine and brandy were fetched out as well.

The Directory, and the Assembly, gave short shrift to failures, Jules Hainaut glumly speculated as he tried a bite of the dessert and found it better than succulent, almost too sweet; though they did not execute as many as they had in the earlier days, Hainaut speculated. Even powerful Robespierre had lost his head as an embarassment! Choundas… perhaps. But never a handsome, cunning fellow such as he! He knew when to jump, and profit by it!

Promised me a command, he did, Hainaut thought; not a privateer, but a National Ship. It was the donkey's carrot that Choundas had hung before his eyes, what he had groomed him for-not to be his footman, his catch-fart, his dog's-body, forever! That's what the de Gougnes of this world were for, after all!

"Excellent," Choundas grunted in rare praise of his berry tart. "Though, cher Hainaut, you must also remind that peau de vache that portions must be cut smaller for me in future."

"I'll see to it, m'sieur," Hainaut swore, beaming at his mentor, already laying an agreeable aura in which he could sooner or later pose his request for a chance to shine on his own.

"The brandy, now, I think, messieurs?" Choundas announced. "And we shall now partake of Lieutenant Recamier's vast experience and his wisdom!" Making Recamier stiffen in dread; which reaction pleased Le Maitre no end.

After all, Machiavelli had said it was better to be feared than loved.

Though Lieutenant Recamier knew that "Le Hideux" loved to make examples of failures in the performance of their duty to the Republic and the navy, the fellow had kept a cool head throughout supper, believing that a bold front of honour impugned, his truth insulted, would serve him better than coming over all meek or fearful, of being willing to admit error but vowing to do better next time… if allowed.

Hainaut had been mildly amazed that Recamier had so kept his wits about him that he'd not even fidgeted, or plucked with his fingers at the tablecloth or his napkin, either-his hands had stayed innocently inert, rising only to gesture, or draw his actions against the British frigate that had destroyed his command, and captured the American smuggling brig in his charge, using the tip of his knife on his placemat.

They had both anchored for the night off St. John's island in the masterless Danish Virgins; yes, he'd seen the frigate, lit up like a whaler hard at work boiling down a catch for its oil, he admitted to them; a clever ruse.

Yes, there she'd been at dawn, as his schooner and the brig had set ^sail, revealed as a British warship, and he had turned at once to interpose his small ship between them and had been the first to fire. Fifteen minutes altogether, he had traded fire with the Biftecks, his puny 6-pounders against 12-pounders, until forced to bear away after roundshot had shattered his schooner's helm. Before relieving tackle could be rigged to the rudder post, his little ship had struck a badly charted shoal, ripping her bows open, stranding her forward third high and dry, and dis-masting her in an instant.

"Unlike some, m'sieur Capitaine, I did not fire a few shots to salvage honour before striking!" Lt. Recamier had sulkily declared to one and all, eyes level, broodingly aflame, as if ready to dare anyone to a duel for his good name. "I had thought to lure the 'Bloody' ship onto the shoal in close pursuit, but my charts were old, so…"

Hainaut had scoffed to himself, sure that Recamier was lying as boldly as a street vendor with a tray of "confiscated aristo" pocket watches, but, strangely, Capt. Choundas had not challenged him over it. And who was to say, since L'Incendiare had not rated a sailing master, leaving her navigation to her low-ranking captain-and all of those charts were now lost with her; quite conveniently, he thought!

Yes, the British frigate had broken off pursuit of the brig to fetch-to and lower two boats filled with "redcoat" Marines and sailors, then had headed West-Nor'west into the vast sound east of St. Thomas to catch the brig-which she did, Recamier had witnessed from a high vantage point ashore through his telescope, and saw them sailing back down a very narrow channel into the sound where she fetched-to, again, to recover her boats and men.

Yes, Recamier had gotten all his crew, including his seriously wounded and maimed men, into his own boats and had rowed ashore on St. John, but only after making sure that his command was well alight, his colours still flying in fiery defiance, and all her damning correspondence rescued, jettisoned in weighted bags or boxes, or left to burn. His precious commission papers and role d'equipage as proof of being a proper warship he had salvaged, which had proved of great value when he had sailed over to St. Thomas a day later and presented himself to the Danish authorities, who had shrugged off the more-punctilious formalities of internment and had treated his wounded well, before providing a cartel ship to return him and his men to Guadeloupe-the Danish fee for such "compassionate" offices a steep one.

"And how close-aboard were the British boats when you left your command, Lieutenant?" Choundas had probed.

"More than four long musket shots, m'sieur, perhaps less," Lt. Recamier had replied, his eyes a tad too unblinking over that point, as if trying too hard to be believed.

"Describe them," Choundas had demanded.

"Hmmm… tarred hulls, m'sieur, perhaps dull black paint? The gunwales and waterline boot-stripes were cream or pale yellow. White oars…?" He had vaguely shrugged, taking a sip of wine, at last.

"Any name displayed, mon cher Lieutenant?" Choundas had almost purred, as if beguiling him into an inescapable trap, making Hainaut lick his lips in expectation, sure that Recamier had gone over-side in haste, not sticking around to take note of such things.

"Proteus, m'sieur," Recamier had calmly and certainly answered, though. "Block letters in gilt, either side of the lead boat's bows. And the officer in charge, he shouted the ship's name, as well. Very bad French, of course. 'Here am I, His Fregate Les Rois.. . His Twelfth Night Cake's ship! Proteus/" Recamier had tittered, making the others laugh. Les Rois, not Le Roi-quel drole! And that error had carried such versimilitude that Captain Choundas had chuckled along (briefly, mind) with the rest, dismissing his suspicions. Only an English ignoramus, so arrogantly unschooled in any language but his own, could mistake the possessive "Majesty's" with the plural "Les Rois," which any French toddler knew meant a Christmastide treat!

In point of fact, Lt. Recamier had picked out the lettering from a very safe half-mile distant with a strong glass, abandoning ship as soon as the "Bloodies" had fetched-to, sure of what was coming, and averse to languishing for years in a prison hulk or scraping by on a pittance in an enemy harbour town on parole, with barely two sou to rub together, unable to afford his usual wine, women, and song, and women! And it was the biftecks who had fired his ship, after sorting through his papers, which he had left scattered 'cross his great-cabins, leaving his false Letter of Marque and Reprisal, taking only his true naval commission! Leaving orders signed by the newly arrived Capitaine de Vaisseau Guillaume Choundas, and did he ever discover that, well…! Even being kin by marriage to the estimable Admiral de Brueys would not save him from the guillotine's blade.

"A most unfortunate turn of fate, then," Choundas had decided, motioning for Capitaine Griot to top up Recamier's wineglass at last. 'But they did not get your ship, or her papers. She did not go into English Harbour with that damnable British flag above her own colours."

"Not into English Harbour, m'sieur, non" Recamier had objected.

Once her boats were recovered, she sailed West, not South. I watched her 'til her t'gallants dropped below the horizon. I suspect that she was not part of the Antigua squadron, but was from Jamaica, instead."

"How odd," Choundas had pondered, leaning back in his chair and staring at the ceiling, as if easing a cramp from sitting so long.

"Poaching, perhaps?" Capitaine de Fregate MacPherson had japed. "With the British troops gone from Saint Domingue, their frigates are under-employed that far West. Do they loan frigates to the squadrons out of Antigua, our tasks will be more difficult, with more patrollers at sea opposing us."

"Proteus" Hainaut had mused. "Did not the London papers last year mention her? Was she not at Camperduin, against our pitiful allies, the Batavians?" he posed, using the Dutch-Flemish pronunciation of the battle's name. "I seem to recall… took a prize, another frigate… something?" he had trailed off, vague, and "foxed" by then on his master's wine.

"Oui, look into that, Etienne," Choundas had ordered.

"Certainement, m'sieur," the harried little clerk had said with a quick bob of his balding head, scribbling notes to himself on scrap paper with an ever-present pencil from his waist-coat pockets.

"Well, mon cher Recamier," Choundas had concluded their supper with an air approaching bonhomie, "it is too bad that your L 'Incendiare was lost, along with the 'Ami' brig and all her supplies, but no blame can be laid against you, you did your best, after all, hein?"

"Merci, m'sieur," Recamier had replied, nodding curtly, as if it were true, and no more than his right, with no sign of relief to his demeanour.

"I cannot promise you another command, though, not for some time," Choundas had informed him. "You understand that a new ship may be seen as a reward, n'est-ce pas? The British knight their captains when they lose after a well-fought action. We… do not. But I am sure that a shore posting, for a year or two… at your current salary rate, of course… might prove instructive… and rewarding."

Choundas had looked down his ravaged, shiny-masked nose, as if to say that he knew about Recamier's three current amours, besides his reasonably well-connected young and attractive wife back in Bordeaux.

"I serve at your command, of course, m'sieur." Recamier shrugged back, with just the right "eager" note of toadying, but nothing too thick or oily.

"It has been a long day, messieurs, and I am weary. Instructive and pleasant as our supper has been, I bid you a good night," Choundas had determined, painfully, stiffly scraping his chair back on the bare parquet floor, and using his stick to rise, most creaky, by then.

Quick handshakes, quick, insincere thanks and compliments were exchanged, Recamier out the door first, then MacPherson and Griot, in order of seniority dates on their commissions; lastly, Capt. Desplan doffed his undonned hat and backed off the wide front veranda to enter the waiting coach that the Black garcon chef 'had whistled up for them. All of them, but Lt. Recamier most of all, were glad to be gone, free of their superior's mercurial, and scathing, temper.

Choundas stood by the door, half slumped in weariness and lingering pain of his ancient wounds, leaning heavily on his walking-stick before turning to clump-swish back into the foyer.

"He lies like a dog, oui, Jules," Choundas said with a snarl of anger, and a touch of resignation. "Oh, his surviving crewmen said he fought well, but as for the rest, hmmm…"

"Then why did you not…?"

"Because he did not cringe, cher Jules!" Choundas barked with a tinge of wonderment in his voice. "Young Recamier has hair on his arse, to face me so coolly. A man of many parts, he is, and most of them calm, calculating, and brave. He is not a timid, cringing shop-keeper! And his wife is a distant cousin to Admiral de Brueys, and the Directory would look even more unfavourably upon me did I harvest the lad's head," Choundas concluded with a world-weary sigh and shrug. "He will not make that set of errors again; he is one who can learn from his mistakes. Of course, he panicked when he ran aground, most likely his first time, hein? I doubt he left his little ship so late as he claims. His Boatswain swears that smoke was visible when he got into his boat, though the real fire did not come 'til later, when the biftecks got aboard her… but he did see to his men, his wounded, so to punish him severely would degrade the morale of our matelots, did a popular and caring officer get guillotined for placing their safety as paramount."

"But he should have fired her at once, even leaving his wounded to burn with her, m'sieur?" Hainaut queried, aghast at the obvious conclusion, and posing his question most carefully.

"Certainement" Choundas callously snapped. "Such sentiment is bourgeois twaddle left over from the old regime, Hainaut. Hardly suitable to a commited son of the Revolution and the Republic. One cannot make the omelette without breaking the eggs, n 'est-ce pas? Or, as the great American revolutionary Jefferson said, 'The tree of revolution must now and then be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants.' "

"Well, Lieutenant Recamier will have plenty of time to think on his error, and repent of it, m'sieur," Hainaut snidely tittered.

"A year at least, before we employ him again," Choundas mused, yawning loudly and widely, unable to cover his mouth. "Unless the need for officers at sea forces my hand. Say, six months?"

"If you wish to really rub his lesson in, m'sieur" Hainaut posed, carefully daring to advance his own career, "you could even send me to sea before him. In the next suitable prize. A fast American schooner, perhaps…"

"Perhaps so, Hainaut. Perhaps so," Choundas seemed to promise, before another gargantuan yawn overtook him. "It is late. The guards are posted? The doors and windows locked for the night? Bon. Garcon/ Light me to my chamber!" he barked at the older chief servant.

"Good night, m'sieur" Hainaut bade him. "Sleep well in your new bed… your first night in your grand new house."

"Thank you, Jules, I believe I will," Choundas said over his shoulder as he shrugged the right side of his ornate coat off, letting it fall down to his left wrist, with the servant fretting about him.

Hainaut turned to ascend the stairs to his own lofty chambers, but had only taken a step or two when he heard de Gougne scuttle across the foyer from his miserable quarters to Le Maitre's, in evident haste and concern, so Hainaut halted and leaned far out, hoping to overhear what seemed so urgent to the little mouse, what made him so fearful.

"… Proteus… Camperduin… the Orangespruit frigate… in the Gazette and Marine Chronicle… mumble-mumble hum-um…"

"Putain!" he heard Choundas bellow. "Mon cul! Ce salaud de… Lewrie? That bastard, that son of a whore is out here?" his superior screamed, instantly so enraged that anyone who crossed him would die, as sure as Fate! The stout walking-stick swished the air, something expensive and frangible shattered… several breakable somethings!

Oh-oh! Hainaut cravenly thought. His bete noire, that bane of his very life, the author of his wounds and disfigurements was nearby?

"Merde alors, putain! That shit, that… cunt! This time, I'll kill him, this time…!"

Lewrie! Hainaut thought, not daring to breathe or draw attention to himself that might make him a target. Now, Recamier's bane … and mine, too. He captured me, once…

More things went smash, the garcon chef 'yelped in sudden pain, then stumbled out of the bed-chamber into the office as if physically hurled… immediately followed by the little mouse, de Gougne, who was guarding his head with the sheaf of papers, his face terror-pale.

Suddenly, the idea of getting a small ship of his own to command seemed a trifle less attractive, Hainaut thought, quietly tip-toeing up the stairs for safety. Better would be to go as a lieutenant aboard a much larger man o' war, Capitaine Desplan's frigate, say, with so many large guns and such stout sides… under an experienced older captain who'd know how to deal with such a clever scourge.