H. M. S. Cockerel (28 page)

“Bloody hell, that many?” Lewrie frowned.

“
Mais,
your soldiers, zey fight Carteau an' Mouret las' week,” Crillart went on, cheering up slightly. “You'
capitaine
El . . . Elf . . .”

“Elphinstone?”

“
Oui,
Elphinstone. 'E comman' Brittanique an' Espagnole soldiers. 'E beat ze Républicains badly, take all zeyr
artillerie,
'orse, an' baggage. Make great
casualtie,
with 'ardly any loss. West of 'ere, at ze village de Senary, an' ze pass at Ollioules.”

“Good on him, then,” Lewrie crowed. “And there're Sardinian troops coming. Neapolitan, British, Austrian, more Spanish. Then, there's the garrison here at Toulon. Sure to be men loyal to Louis the Seventeenth.”

“Oui,”
Crillart allowed with another heavy shrug. “Ze Espagnole zey lan'
un mille
. . . one s'ousand men. Royaliste Toulonese,
peutêtre
two s'ousand men, only. Many, zey desert. 'Ave
très
fear?
Votre armée,
viz
matrossez et Garde du Corps
. . . 'ow you say . . . ?”

“Our sailors and marines, and two regiments of infantry?”

“
Oui,
per'ap' ze . . . uhm, one an' a 'alf s'ousand?”

“Hell, is that all, so far? I'd have thought sure . . .” Lewrie exclaimed, thinking again of that fifteen-mile perimeter. Though the troops present—so far—were better drilled and more experienced than Republican peasant levies, that still sounded like they were more than a
bit
thin on the ground.

“
Pardon, avez-vous manger?
'Ave you eaten,
mon ami?
” Crillart asked.

“Well, not exactly . . .”

“Zen you mus' come 'ome viz me,
ami
Alain!” Lieutenant Crillart cried. “Maman, Louis et Sophie, zey will be fill viz delight! An' ze
cuisine à la Toulonnaise . . . le vin! Magnifique!
”

“It was wine I was after,” Lewrie explained, waffling. “I came to do some shopping for the wardroom, and . . .” The others had entrusted him and Lieutenant Scott with a cache of coin so they could purchase fresh livestock, eggs, cheeses, breads, and most especially, wine to replenish stores. Between Royalist “gratitude” and stark fear for the morrow among their hosts, they'd anticipated some truly outrageous knock-down bargains.

“Ve do zat,
maintenant.
I aid you viz ze storekeepers,
hein?
An' zen, you dine viz us, as our 'onoured guest. I insist!”

“Well, in that case . . . I'd be delighted,” Lewrie replied, never one to turn down a free meal. “Lead me. I'm yours.”

C H A P T E R 3

T
hey
were, the de Crillarts, a rather nice family . . . for Frogs. After an hour of shopping and, with Charles's help, the discovery of a well-stocked chandlery, and a chandler who wasn't trying to pay off the national debt, they'd sent the cutter back to
Cockerel
gunn'l-deep with everything they'd hoped for.

Lt. Charles Auguste de Crillart and his relations lodged in what they termed an
appartement,
very West Indies in character, with wrought-iron balconies and tall windows overlooking the basin, high up on the sloping town's heights. The late afternoon vista was pleasant and fairly cool, the apartment airy and well lit, but a bit on the tattered side. Shabbily respectable, but certainly not one of the better neighbourhoods. Not what Lewrie would have thought suitable for aristocracy, even genteelly straitened aristocracy; as if Charles was forced to live on his naval pay—and that, given the times, uncertain in amount and regularity of payment.

Maman was one of those long, horse-faced, stout-jawed ladies of the old school, who clung to pale face powders and white-floured wigs. Hortense de Crillart was in her middle fifties, and might have been a handsome woman in her day. She had not been as enthralled as Charles had said to have another maw at her table, though Lewrie had mollified her misgivings with a basket of victuals and wine from the chandlery as a house gift.

Louis, the younger brother—Chevalier Louis de Crillart, he went by—was a sulky, pimply sort, dark-haired and dark-eyed, initially stiff with grave hauteur, though he'd thawed a little as the evening progressed. He was twenty, and had been a junior officer in a famous cavalry regiment, much like a British coronet in a unit which could boast “The King's Own . . .” in its designation. The regiment had been disbanded, its aristocratic officers dismissed or beheaded, and it was now run by corporals and sergeants, to Chevalier Louis's great, and voluble, disgust. Lewrie sensed that there was some rancour among the brothers, Louis and Charles, as if the dead father and Charles—the current baron—had made a Devil's bargain in relinquishing their titles, in selling off their estates, and fleeing instead of fighting.

Though they tried to be affable and gracious to their guest, Alan caught a few flurries of rapid French tossed between them like grenades now and then, not meant for his ears. Poor his French might be, but he did catch enough of their gist to realise that Charles's declaration for the Republic, which had saved their lives from the guillotine, and his first enthusiastic support of the Assembly, was a black betrayal to Louis, the intensest sort of Royalist firebrand. Looking at him as he spoke, his eyes glaring, darting under his dark brows, the quick, impatient way he tossed his loose-gathered hair away from his face, Lewrie could imagine him the same sort of fanatic as the ones who'd launched the Terror—a fanatic equally dedicated to his bright, shining cause—on the opposing side.

Charles, without his uniform coat and hat, at ease at the table with a glass of wine in his hand and a fund of stories about shipboard life in the French Navy, seemed much the same charming fellow he had in the Caribbean after Lewrie's ship
Desperate
had taken
Capricieuse,
and they'd dined together so often on the sail back to Antigua, with Lewrie rated midshipman and master's mate, in charge of the prize, and Charles on his parole. Not like a baron at all, then or now, Lewrie thought.

Charles appeared more like a member of the
petit-bourgeoisie,
a chap more comfortable in furry slippers after a long day at a clerking desk. He was distinguished-looking, about Lewrie's age; nothing to write home about, though. Regular features, average height and all the usual forgettable bumf.

The intriguing member of the family was the younger female cousin, Sophie de Maubeuge. Her story was more tragic. Whilst Charles's presence in the Estates-General had saved his family, her father and all her relations had been too well-to-do, too resistant to change—too well known and powerful. She'd fled her convent school to hide in Normandy with the de Crillarts, whilst the tumbrils and the mobs had claimed most of her kin, including her immediate family. She was now the sole survivor, the last Vicomtesse de Maubeuge.

It was a heady title for such a sylphlike, shy, soft-spoken girl. Sophie was only fifteen, slim and petite, the sort who softly whispered when she spoke, and that, rarely. Though graced with the innate, bred-in-the-bone polish of aristocracy, the tutoring in social arts and such, she was as meek as a scullerymaid, and smiled or laughed seldom; though Lewrie considered her recent horrible history a damned good reason for her gravity. That, and a proper convent, sergeant-major nun upbringing.

She was of middling height, a bit less than five and a half feet tall, between seven and eight stone in weight. Sophie's features were bewitchingly gamine. High cheekbones, a pertly tapering face, full and wide lips, and crowned by overly large, slightly almond-shaped eyes of a startling green hue, brilliant as cat's eyes, and set like glittering gems in a flawless, “peaches-an'-cream” complexion. Her hair, which she still wore long and simple in girlish fashion, was a fascinating reddish auburn hue, more russet or red chestnut than anything else Alan could think to compare it to. And the very idea that some bloody-eyed peasants, gutter sweepings and mobocracy could even begin to think of chopping the head off such an entrancing and harmless young thing set his blood boiling. Quite apart from being covertly besotted, he found his heart going out to her in sympathy.

There was trouble there, too, he'd noted, when he tried to be his most charming and amusing self, to cosset her into a better mood with songs or japes. Chevalier Louis had left off berating Republicans to glare at him for being amusing, for monopolising her attention. And, Lewrie also noted, when tender young Sophie de Maubeuge had sheep's eyes, or laughed at last, she directed her gaze and encouragement toward Charles, her saviour, as if to share with him!

It had been his family fortune, what little of it was left after selling their estates and most-prized possessions to gimlet-eyed agents or hateful neighbours, that had supported her, had brought her down to Toulon and safety. And, Alan learned, it had taken more than Charles's declaration of support and allegiance to the Republic—it had taken hefty bribes to keep her off the local committee's lists of those who deserved their necks stretched below the blade of a guillotine.

Supper with the family—a hearty and creamy soup, laced with onions and a few dubious shreds of chicken. Scads of crusty bread and butter, a runny omelet served with well-seasoned sliced and fried potatoes, and a small veal cutlet nestled at the side of his plate, aswim in a thin wine gravy, with an abundance of mushrooms, disguising what a tiny cutlet it was, ladled atop. And a marvelous St. Emilion Bordeaux, several bottles in fact, to wash it all down. Enough wine to at last mellow even the sulkiest to a semblance of good cheer, and put a dimple in Sophie's cheek.

“I must be going, Charles,” Lewrie said at last, after mangling a tune on a borrowed recorder and returning it to Sophie's care.

“Back to your ship,” Crillart shrugged. “I walk viz you to ze quays, Alain.”

“Permettez-moi, maman?”
Sophie said quickly, sounding more like a regular girl, eager to go out, at last, as she fetched Lewrie's hat; like the daughter of a middling-common family might, instead of waiting for some servant to do it.

“Oui,”
Maman allowed grudgingly, with a stern expression. Her lips flattened over her long teeth and gums, making her look even more horse-faced, and Lewrie caught another subtle undertone, as Madame de Crillart darted her glances to both Sophie and Charles, then at Louis.

Alan made his most courtly goodbye, bowed low in
congé,
expressed how much he'd enjoyed himself, and promised to repay their generous hospitality. Maman replied in kind, though she sounded doubtful.

It was a lovely time for a stroll. Close to sundown, with cool breezes ruffling the waters of the basin and the farther Little Road, the street lamps being lit, and the apartments and shops aglow with a candle or lantern in every window. The sun was quite low, and it was a gold and orange sunset, dusky rose-reddish gray to the south and east. Louis, thankfully, did not accompany them, so Charles and Alan strode to either side of the shorter Sophie. But it was upon Charles's genteelly extended arm that she rested her fine, white hand.

“Such a lovely evening,” Lewrie commented as they strolled downhill. “All the ships, outlined against the setting sun.”

“Ze
Dauphin-Royal,
”
Charles pointed out, indicating the massive 120-gunned ship on the east side of the basin. “Ze Republicans, zey vill change 'er name. Ze ozzer,
Commerce-de-Marseille.
An' ze
quatrevingts canon
. . . ze eighty guns;
Tonnant, Triomphant, Couronne.
”

He reeled off the majestic names of the seventy-four-gunned ships, those the Royal Navy would term 3rd Rates:
Apollon, Centaure, Lys
(now named
Tricolour
),
Scipion, Destin, Dictateur, Duquesne, Héros, Heureux, Pompee, Commerce-de-Bordeaux, Censeur, Mercure, Alcide, Conquérant, Guerrier
and
Puissant, Suffisant
and
Souverain,
now called with leveling, Egalitarian logic,
Souverain-Peuple; Généreux, Orion, Entreprenant, Patriote, Duguay-Trouin, Languedoc
and
Trajan.

All as harmless now as a pack of dead otters, their powder away in warehouses ashore, small arms taken off and locked up, though seamen still thronged their decks, for lack of a better place to house them. Strangely silent ships, too, with none of the usual dogwatch music or humumm to be heard, their yards still properly squared and crossed and rigging taut, spider-mazed black against the sunset. Few lights showed, even through lower-deck gun ports opened for ventilation. Glims at the belfries and wheels, from wardroom or great-cabin windows, perhaps, but little else; their taffrail lanterns for night-running dark. And flying no flags of any kind.

“An'
Alceste,
”
Charles muttered gravely, gazing with a spurned lover's sadness at his ship, his beloved frigate, squeezed in so snug between others on the eastern quay that she looked as forlorn as some barge abandoned in a weeded ship-breaker's yard.
“Peutêtre . . . ”

“Soon, Charles,” Lewrie assured him. “With enough loyal seamen, surely it's in the coalition's interests to raise a Royalist squadron, to show the world. And encourage the other maritime provinces, such'z the Vendee, Corsica . . . perhaps . . .
peut-être,
hey? . . . they'd promote a loyal lieutenant to, how do you say? . . .
capitaine de frégate?
”

“Capitaine,”
Charles mused with a slight smile. “Zat soun' très
bon. Oui . . . peut-être, mon ami.
”

“Capitaine de frégate, Charles Auguste, Baron de Crillart,” the girl tasted, in a slightly bolder voice than her meek, kittenish tone, and beamed a hopeful smile at both of them. “
Oui,
zat soun'
magnifique!
An' 'e vin
beaucoup
fame, as 'e conquer.”

Poor little mort's head over heels in love with the man, Lewrie laughed to himself. And all he looks is . . . modest? What a twit! Take what you may, fool! And the best of luck to you. Oh, give her three'r so more years, o' course, but then . . . make sure I dance at yer weddin'.

“Why not admiral, Mademoiselle Sophie?” Lewrie teased slyly, to see what her response might be. “Once the revolutionaries've been beat, and France is herself again, well . . . sky's the limit.”

“Sky . . . eez ze leemeet?” she frowned. “Oh!
Le ciel!
Ah,
oui,
M'sieur Lewrie!
Zen 'e 'ave . . . recover eez estate . . . all ze estates . . .”

“He settles down as a duke. A most eligible duke,” Lewrie coaxed. “Charles, I'm amazed, all this time, you haven't married?”

“Ah, you see,
mon ami,
” Charles stammered, turning as mottled as the sunset clouds, and Lewrie was rewarded by a sly, and thankful, look of near adoration from the girl, a gratitude which warmed him right down to his toes. “Ze
marine royale,
uhm . . . ze marry
officeur,
'e eez . . . zey s'ink 'e eez lack
le
dedication . . . ?”

“Lieutenant Lewrie, tu
es marié
. . .
you
are married,
n'est-ce pas?
Encore, marine royale de la ‘bif-tecs' . . . oh, pardon!
”
she cried, using an insulting (for the French, anyway) colloquialism. Blushing to the roots of her hair under her stylish little hat, she struggled with her most important point. “
Votre
. . . Royal Navy, yet
zey
do not . . .”