Troubled Waters

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Welcome aboard, Captain Lewrie," HMS Chesterfield's First Lieutenant bade him with a smile as Lewrie doffed his cocked hat. "Commodore Ayscough awaits you."

"Thankee, sir. Who's the new arrival?" Lewrie asked, pointing with his chin towards the strange new 64-gunner that cruised astern of the flagship.

"Oh, that's he. Jersey, sir," the First Officer confided as he walked Lewrie aft towards'the poop himself. "Captain Edward Cheatham. She joined us only three days ago."

"And most welcome, I'm bound," Lewrie said, "after the Commodore has requested, begged, and God knows what else to get her."

"She brought mail, sir," Chesterfield 's First Officer said with glee. "First we've received, the last two months. Commodore Ayscough's clerk is holding yours, and your other vessels'."

"I'd admire did you sack it all up and hand it to my Cox'n for delivery aboard Savage, if ye'd be so kind, sir," Lewrie asked, partly delighted, and partly fearful of what dire news from his barrister the mail might contain.

"I shall see to it directly, Captain Lewrie."

A Marine in full kit guarding Ayscough's great-cabins under the poop deck raised his musket in salute, then returned it to his side to slam the butt on the oak deck with a loud cry of "Cap'm Lewrie… SAH!"

"Enter… but he'd best have a sheep with him!" came a muffled shout from within.

"A prime sheep, aye, sir!" Lewrie called back before he entered, "bleatin' on. the starboard gangway!" Commodore Ayscough, being a Scot, was hellish-fond of roast mutton or lamb, and obtaining one from French smugglers was a standing request of any warship coming off the blockade.

"Captain Lewrie, give ye joy, sir!" Ayscough beamed as he rose from one of his collapsible leather-covered chairs in his day-cabin. "Ye'll stay aboard to dine upon it with us, I vow." His hand was out, and a glad smile was on his face. "I swear, you're a terror, Lewrie. Went at 'em like a 'Ram-Cat,' hey? Take a pew, sir, and accept a glass of this lovely claret. Captain Cheatham, may I name to you one of my most energetic officers, Captain Alan Lewrie of the Savage frigate… leads our close watch of the Gironde mouth. Lewrie, this is Captain Edward Cheatham of the Jersey, sixty-four, recently come to join."

"Your servant, sir," Lewrie said with a bow of his head.

"Delighted to make your acquaintance, Captain Lewrie," Cheatham replied. He was an older fellow, approaching fifty, grey-haired, and one who still wore his hair in a mid-shoulder long queue, rather than the neat, wee sprig just barely atop the uniform coat collar that most officers now sported, or the younger ones, who eschewed the queue altogether. Cheatham was lean, leather-faced, and tanned the colour of golden walnut. "The Commodore has imparted to me the inner squadron's most recent exploits, for which I offer my congratulations, Lewrie."

"Thankee kindly, sir," Lewrie replied, feeling the need to go "modest" and self-deprecating. "Just keepin' Monsoor Frog on the hop?"

"One does wish to be a frigate man again," Cheatham wistfully said. "They seem to have all the fun."

"Perhaps we may yet have some fun of our own." Ayscough grinned as he summoned a cabin servant, so Lewrie could get a glass, and the others could get a top-up. "Depending on what Lewrie here has gleaned from his sources 'mongst the French fishermen, that is." Ayscough tapped the side of his nose, as if to preface great revelations, looking at Lewrie like a tutor at his best scholar, about to do his Latin recitations before the rest of the faculty.

"Well sir, what I've been told since our raid is contradictory," Lewrie had to admit, after a sip of wine, wondering if it was a Lafite or Brave-Mouton. His time off the Gironde had done wonders for his palate, and thank God for clever smugglers. "What we've seen, sirs, is quite another matter. After our second raid upon the Savage Coast… Cote Sauvage, rather… the French have begun some new emplacements along it. There's one at the base of Point Coober… pardons, again, sirs. The lesser ships have simplified local place names, for their ease of understanding. As I said, at the base of the 'hook'…"

"Chart," Ayscough impatiently ordered, and they ended leaning in over a chart laid atop the table 'twixt the chairs and the settee.

"One here, to close the Maumusson Channel to Rochefort, Marennes, and La Tremblade," Lewrie pointed out. "One by the creek and the spring where we watered, and one here, where the Pointe de la Coubre peninsula begins, right where the coast road curves sou'east to Royan, sirs."

"Captain Charlton told me of this'un," Ayscough said of the one furthest north. "Pity he can't get to grips with it as you did, Lewrie. The fort cross the Channel on Ile d'Oleron prevents him. Else, he'd give it a daily bombardment, as I expect you treat these others."

"I don't, sir," Lewrie confessed. "I want the French shiftin' men and artillery to the Savage Coast. It's sixteen miles o' march from there to Royan, and Fort Saint Georges de Didonne, so… should the French think we're planning a large assault here," he said with a stab at the lonely, almost uninhabited forest, with its road that led to La Tremblade and Marennes, threatening the naval base of Rochefort, "then that's fewer guns and soldiers to defend the completed fort here, and the one they're buildin' here," he said, shifting his finger to St. Georges, then Pointe de Grave, which guarded the Gironde narrows.

"Ye don't wish…?" a deflated Commodore Ayscough all but babbled. "The Pointe de Grave battery is still unfinished, and, of late, we've seen fewer workers, not more, as I'd expect," Lewrie continued. "We can't see far up the Gironde, but what little we've been able to spy out reveals more barge traf-fick comin' down from Bordeaux. Were the French intent upon finishin' the Pointe de Grave battery quicker, it'd make sense for them t'hug the south bank of the river and put in at Le Verdon sur Mer, here," he said, indicating the bay, harbour, and cove, "and some have, sirs, but the bulk of what we've seen with our own eyes is barges huggin' the north bank, runnin' close ashore 'tween Meschers sur Gironde and Saint Georges. Frog-built roads," he scoffed, and the other two senior officers shrugged and rolled their eyes. And, it was a given that a brace, a dozen, sailing barges could carry more cargo than an hundred supply waggons, even if they had to employ sweeps to make headway into the wind and tides, at times, and bear everything an army needed much faster than heavy guns and waggons could trundle along bad roads.

"What we've been able to see of the French emplacements on the Savage Coast, sirs, what artillery they're entrenchin', seem heavier than the six-pounder regimental pieces we encountered. It's possible that the twelve- and eighteen-pounders meant for Pointe de Grave have been commandeered to prevent the feared landing on the Savage Coast.

"Lots of French warships incomplete at Bordeaux," he speculated. "Lots of artillery sittin' idle, as well. They will finish the Pointe de Grave battery eventually, sirs, but not any time too soon, and…," Lewrie tantalised with a sly bright-eyed smile, "for the nonce, Fort Saint Georges's twelve- and eighteen-pounders cannot close the narrows. They haven't the range, and there's a mile or better of deep, navigable river on the south bank, by Pointe de Grave and Le Verdon sur Mer, sirs. That's where I really mean to strike.

"Oh," he quibbled, "I have Erato and Argosy maintainin' a presence off the Savage Coast, sirs, with my frigate further out to sea to provide support cruisin' slow, and as close ashore as they dare go… taking soundings, sirs?"

"As if preparing the ground for ships of the line, and deeper-draught transports, aha!" Capt. Cheatham exclaimed, "twigging" to his scheme.

"I trust you've included us in this plan o' yours, Lewrie," the Commodore demanded with a pout.

"Oh, indeed, sir!" Lewrie told him. "Savage, and all the rest of the innermost blockaders, land on Pointe de Grave to demolish the unfinished battery, with as many Marines and armed sailors available from the ships of the line. It was my intention that you, sir, with Chesterfield, now with the welcome addition of Jersey, perhaps with Captain Chaxltons Lyme to re-enforce you, sail in and engage the Saint Georges fort… with additional re-enforcements of more Marines and armed sailors from the line-of-battle ships, which, I hope, will make a grand diversion, a… demonstration, on the new French batteries near the spring, and the base of the 'hook' of Point Coubre… so the French will be distracted long enough for us to destroy both emplacements on the narrows, sirs."

Capt. Cheatham was all ears to hear the nature of the various fortifications, nodding eagerly as an old cavalry mount might when the bugle notes of "Form Ranks by Squadrons" sounded.

"Just as well Lord Boxham's seventy-four gunners will only make a noisy demonstration, Captain Lewrie," Cheatham finally said. "Sand, earth, and log ramparts, built low, with gun embrasures protected with gabions, 'til ready to be run out, are almost impossible to defeat. As the palmetto log and sand fortification at Charleston, South Carolina, defeated us… Fort Moultrie, aye. When I was a lad, a lowly Lieutenant 'board a Third Rate, in the first year of the American Revolution, we sailed in, expecting to sweep all aside and take the city, one of the richest ports in America, but Fort Moultrie, constructed as it was, simply swallowed everything we fired at it for most of a day, and was mostly undamaged when we'd run out of shot and powder, and had to sail away with our tails 'tween our legs. When may we begin, sir?"

"Well…," Lewrie hedged. "That'd be up to Rear-Admiral Lord Boxham, sir, for he's not seen a bit of this yet, Captain Cheatham."

"I'll see to that, no fear," Ayscough assured them, eager for a chance to do something other than cruise and plod.

"He'll surely ask what gems of intelligence lead me to assume it'll work, Commodore Ayscough," Lewrie had to impart. "And… I still don't possess solid information. As I said in the beginning of our meeting, what I've been told is contradictory, sir."

"Ahem," Ayscough soured. "Indeed," he added, frowning; giving Lewrie the sort of look a drunken, blank-minded student who'd flubbed his walking-out recitations might get from the aforesaid hopeful tutor.

"I'm told encouraging things by one of my principal informants, sir, bleaker tidings by the other, and frankly, I'm not sure which of 'em to believe," Lewrie had to admit. "After the wooding, watering, and massacre, most of the fishermen have turned surly on us. After the second incident, surly turned to hatred, and even our ships longest on-station… Commanders Kenyon and Hogue, and our Lieutenants' commands, can't get a kind word from the Frogs who seemed the friendliest, and most informative.

"They've become uncooperative, even when it comes to selling us victuals and wines, sirs," Lewrie bemoaned. "Nothing is available, of a sudden, or if it is, the price has climbed higher than that fellow's, Montgolfier's, hot-air balloon. Best make the best of your sheep, sir, for I fear we'll not see its like anytime soon."

"And, 'til you discover which of them is truthful, your planned operation cannot be advanced, Captain Lewrie?" Capt. Cheatham asked.

"No sir, it can't," Lewrie confessed. Going even further, he also said, "Now, were one of our Foreign Office agents here, one experienced at sifting truth from fiction, and able to see through the duplicity of the French, well… frankly, I feel a tad out of my depth, Captain Cheatham."

"Well, damme," Ayscough gravelled, slumping in his chair, and profoundly disappointed by the situation; looking askance at his "star pupil," too, as if profoundly let down by him, as well.