King, Ship, and Sword

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

And take her they did, sixteen miles from the entrance to the Mississippi, out of sight of land and any watchers from Fort Balise or the delta shoal islands. She was a converted two-decker Third Rate, sailing en flute with only half her lower-deck guns and none of her upper-deck artillery. Even before Reliant fetched up to her at Range to Random Shot, she struck her colours and reduced sail, stealing any hopes that Lewrie might have nourished that there would be more fighting. There would be no more vengeance to be exacted.

When Lewrie went aboard with his boat crew and half the Marine complement, even he could not summon up any more anger. The two-decker carried only two companies of French infantry and was not manned to the establishment, either-there were not over 120 of them, led by an older Major, who openly wept as he handed over his unit's colours and his sword. There should have been a full regiment, the Major explained through an interpreter, but sickness on-passage, sickness once they had reached Cape Franзois, and the desperate need for defenders on St. Domingue to hold off the savage slave army had reduced their numbers.

"Et l'embarras des rйfugiйs, m'sieur," the Major said, waving an arm about the decks, shrugging helplessly, and swiping at his eyes with a calico handkerchief.

"Yes, I see," Lewrie told him, looking past him to the hundreds of civilians aboard; older men and matrons, married couples with their children, so many children.

"Tant de pauvres orphelins" the Major added with a huge sigh and a sniffle. His captains and lieutenants standing behind him were just as morose as their commanding officer, and even the French sailors were hangdog miserable. "So many orphans, m'sieur" the interpreter said. "Zey 'ave nozzing left, mos' of zem. What zey 'ave to wear, everyone."

Lewrie glowered as he paced about the quarterdeck of the ship as it wallowed and rolled, fetched-to and with the way off her. There were simply too many frightened, utterly miserable faces to avoid, too many pathetic pleas in their eyes.

Damn 'em! Lewrie thought; I should take 'em all back to Jamaica, intern 'em 'til their evacuation's arranged back to France, but…

His men were busy gathering gun-tools, muskets, and short hangers and bayonets by the boat-load, disarming the soldiers and emptying the ship's arms chests to leave them nothing with which to resist or rise up in the Middle Watch once back out at sea for Kingston, and a Prize Court.

He owed these pathetic Frogs nothing, not after what they had done to him… to Caroline, yet…

"You send zem to ze hulks, m'sieur?" the interpreter wheedled as he dogged Lewrie's steps. "Turn zis ship to ze prison? Zey perish, m'sieur! You mak retourner au… send them back, back, n'est-ce pas? Back to Le Cap, ze Noirs sauvages will mak ze massacre!"

"Oh, stop yer bloody gob!" Lewrie snapped at him, going back to the entry-port to look down at his empty boats. He pursed his lips, thinking hard. He looked round, and everywhere there were French men, children, and women, all looking at him in dread, some softly weeping into their handkerchiefs; children wailed and clung to their parents' legs or skirts…

Lewrie went back to the interpreter, pointing him towards the two-decker's captain. "Ask him how many boats he has. Four, that all? And how many refugees per boat does he judge would be safe, given the weather and sea state? Only sixty at a time? Damn! How many of 'em are there? Over three hundred? Hell and damn!"

It would be impossible, even if the French seamen cooperated to the utmost. With his three ship's boats, and the Frenchman's, he might be able to land ninety or so per trip ashore, four trips in all, but he would have to close the coast to within half a mile or more, violating Spanish territory and raising one hell of a diplomatic stink. Louisiana was still Spanish; the hand-over to France had not yet happened as far as he knew. Better for him if it had reverted to France; then he could barge into enemy waters with impunity.

If the French sailors manning the oars refused to return for a second load, preferring to scamper and escape imprisonment, it would be over before it began.

And land them where? Lewrie paced to the shoreward bulwarks, hands in the small of his back, recalling how bleak and barren were the alluvial Mississippi Delta shoals either side of the Passes, both banks of the main river.

Might as well maroon 'em on the Chandeleurs! he scoffed; an hundred miles down-river from New Orleans? Close to Fort Balise? Damn!

That would do the refugees no good; Fort Balise was but lightly garrisoned, a joke on the term fort, and most-like the few Dons there lived hand-to-mouth already and would have no victuals to share. And there was the problem of a British warship in a Spanish river again.

Even if he could land them there, in the name of Christian charity, how long would it be before the Spanish got word upriver and sent a boat back to Fort Balise with extra food?

He turned to look North.

The squadron's got boats! he realised; do we take this ship and our other prizes into the Mississippi Sound, anchor up near Old Biloxi, we could barge ' em into Lake Borgne and land 'em on that little beach I found. From there, it's only fifteen miles up the Chef Menteur road t'New Orleans! Send a letter along with 'em… What's the bloody name o' that Panton, Leslie trade agent I worked with? Pollock. Gideon Pollock, aye!

And if the squadron used all thirteen of their own ship's boats, commandeered all the undamaged French ship's boats, manned by British tars, there would be no risk of losing prisoners who could not be trusted to honour their temporary parole!

He went back to midships of the quarterdeck, to the interpreter once more. "Tell them that I mean t'get the civilians ashore, but not here. Tell the Major I must order him, his officers, and soldiers to go below. M'sieur capitaine, he and his officers will go aft, under guard, as well, along with his sailors. Warn them that any attempt at revolt will result in great bloodshed.

"I will not take them back to Saint Domingue, tell them!" Lewrie snapped, cutting off the quick objections. "The civilian refugees will be allowed to go to New Orleans… the short way, up yonder," he said, pointing an arm to the North. "Any resistance on the part of the crew of this ship, or the soldiers aboard, and they will not. Comprendre?"

"M'sieur, you swear? Zat zey will…?" the interpreter pled.

"Upon my sacred honour and the honour of my country," he told him. "And I will require the same oath from every officer here. Upon their sacred, personal honour and… the sacred honour of France."

And pray God I don't have t'say that more'n once a century! he thought, keeping his phyz stern and immobile, though the idea of "the sacred honour of France" almost made him gag.

They swore, some reluctantly, but they swore, then dispersed to be herded below and locked away under Marine guard.

"Desmond? Row back to Reliant and deliver my compliments to Lieutenant Westcott, and bid him ferry over a prize-crew… armed to the teeth, mind. We will sail back to re-join the squadron."

"Aye, sor! Come on, Pat," his Cox'n replied.

"That Frog shit doesn't sup with us this evening, sir?" Lewrie asked as Captain Blanding hosted his captains in his poop cabins, ten days after the action, and almost to Kingston, Jamaica.

"Captain Julien Decean… our worthy French opponent, is under the weather, Captain Lewrie," Blanding replied with a wink as his steward indicated that supper was ready to be served. "A dyspeptic distress to his touchy digestion. Don't much care for English cooking, it would appear," Blanding added as he thumped his chair close to the table, so the napkin he tucked into his neck-stock could cover his girth. "There is also the matter that he feels we didn't quite fight fair."

"Man's an idiot, sir," Blanding's First Lieutenant, Gilbraith, commented. "The very idea that he expected to penetrate a line and separate us into defeatable pieces, ha! Ah, portable soup!"

"Well, Admiral Duncan did at Camperdown, Mister Gilbraith, and doubled on the Dutch," Lewrie pointed out as a bowl of soup was placed before him. "If he'd had equal numbers, well… or, was it tried in a fleet action, with two or three columns."

"Let us pray that their Navy is full of such dubious tacticians and lofty fools." Captain Parham chuckled. "Perhaps we should send him back to them, to let him try it on again?"

"As few of our Post-Captains are in French custody, it may be a long while before Decean is exchanged," Captain Blanding drawled as he tested how hot his soup was, blew on a spoonful, then tasted it. "We may only hope that men of his stripe are entrusted with the command of their ships. And that Napoleon Bonaparte continues to be as ignorant of the sea as he seems, and continues to appoint men like Decean."

"Hear, hear!" Captain Stroud of Cockerel heartily agreed.

"Upon my word, Captain Lewrie," Blanding went on, "but I would not have suspected you to possess a shred of charity towards the French, given your, uhm… dealings with the devils, but… I must own that it would have cut a bit rough with me to be so heartless as to doom those refugees to a Jamaican holding pen. We don't make war on helpless civilians. It just ain't Christian!"

"Hear, hear, sir!" Lt. Gilbraith seconded between quick slurps.

"A most fitting end to our endeavour, indeed," Chaplain Brundish stuck in. "It is one thing to show implacable wrath to those most deserving of it, yet quite another to extend the sweet, kind hand of mercy to those who do not. So British, so English, that it makes me swell with pride to be Church of England."

"Well said, sir!" Captain Blanding exclaimed. "A most fitting act to gild the laurel wreaths of our victory. For which we have Captain Lewrie to thank for the suggestion."

"Hear, hear!" Captain Stroud piped up, lifting his glass.

Toady! Lewrie sourly thought.

"Well… thankee for sayin' so, sir," Lewrie said, striving for proper modesty. "And for acceptin' my thoughts on what t'do with ' em all. Not their fault they're French… those refugees."

"I dare say," Chaplain Brundish said after a sip of wine and a dab at his lips with his napkin, "that news of our victory, as well as our merciful conclusion to it, will make all good Englishmen swell in pride, when it is made known in the papers back home."

"That, and the casualty list," Capt. Parham of Pylades added, looking slyly droll.

"Aye, Parham… not over a dozen of ours slain, not two dozen wounded," Captain Stroud proudly said, "The most Modeste's, sorry to say, but then, you did bear the brunt of the action, sir. Most proficiently and ably. As opposed to the French losses, that is."

Blanding bowed in place, pleased as punch by the compliment.

"Aye, the Mob'll be mad for it," Lewrie commented.

It was what the Publick at home had come to expect of the Royal Navv, the impossible victory by an out-numbered, out-gunned squadron or lighter single frigate 'gainst a bigger, with a pleasing "butcher's bill" of enemy slain to report in the papers.

That they had accomplished; the leading French frigate had had over 350 men aboard-they always over-manned-and when she had struck and been boarded, nigh half of them were dead or wounded, with the rest staggering round in shock or slumped dead-drunk after breaking into the spirits stores of brandy, wine, rum, ratafia, or arrack. The French flagship had had over 700 in her crew, and a quarter of them had perished or been horribly maimed.

The trailing frigate that had struck to Cockerel and Pylades… well, that was another sterling example of British pluck and daring, and French timidity; though she had taken very little damage and very few casualties, her captain had seen the futility of vigourous resistance and had fired off only two or three broadsides before striking her colours and surrendering. Parham, a considerate young man towards his sailors, seemed satisfied, though Stroud, out to make a name for himself, Lewrie suspected, still seemed disappointed.

"As we lay up treasure of a temporal nature in a Prize-Court, I expect we also lay up more treasure with Admiralty, and the nation, for a job well done," Captain Blanding congratulated himself smugly as his soup bowl was removed and a fresh plate laid before him. "Oh, the sea-pie, good ho!"

"And treasure in Heaven, sir," Chaplain Brundish added with a deep, blessing-like nod of his head, "for the Christian mercy bestowed upon the innocent at its conclusion."

"Quite so, ha ha!" Stroud seconded.

"We may only hope that our temporal treasure will be paid out in honest measure, though, sirs," Lewrie said as he took a fork full of the hearty sea-pie. "There are half a dozen prize-agents at Kingston, and only one or two may be trusted not t'scalp us bald. I know of only one I ever dealt with who played me fair, and God only knows if he's still in business, after the long peace."

"Bedad, yes!" Blanding exclaimed. "Why, between the four ships we took, all of them French National ships, not merchantmen, there may be an hundred thousand pounds owing… and none of it due to Admiral Duckworth, haw haw!"

"Head-And-Gun Money on the two-decker transport, too," Stroud reminded them. "All those soldiers, to boot?"

"Be months before they're condemned and bought in to the Navy," Blanding cautioned. "Even so, some small advances may be made to us."

"Enough for a proper wine cellar, I trust," Captain Parham enthused, chuckling. "Serving with Captain Lewrie in the past, I gained an appreciation for fine wines… and lashings of prize-money from our previous captures. Some of the ships we took back then, their masters or captains were possessed of discerning palates, were they not, sir?"

"A few of'em, aye, Parham," Lewrie wistfully agreed, "but some with the taste of Philistines. The piratical sorts, mostly."

"And what might you do with your spoils, Captain Lewrie? Any special wishes?" Stroud asked, trying to be "chummy."

"You know…," Lewrie said, sitting back to ponder that query for a long moment. He took a sip of wine, then grinned. "I think I will buy a penny-whistle."

To the rest, it was a jape, an amazement.

But Lewrie really meant it.