H. M. S. Cockerel (41 page)

He offered his hand for Lewrie to shake.

“And I wish the very best of good fortune go with you, sir. God speed, and fair winds.”

“Thankee, milord, for your goodness to me,” Alan said firmly, as he shook that offered hand. “And for your trust. I will safely bring away all you send me, milord.”

“My dear Lieutenant Lewrie, I rely on that steadfast promise just as surely as I expect tomorrow's sunrise.”

C H A P T E R 3

Z
ey
are
merde,
” de Crillart griped, picking at the faded bulwarks of their ship. “Ze discipline, phfft . . . an' no one care to keep zem in proper fashion. 'Cep' for
mon
Alceste . . .”
he sighed wistfully as his precious frigate began to make sail, out past the log boom, in the fairway for the Gullet. Ragged her scratch crew was, sloppy and uncoordinated as a pack of complete landsmen. That was understandable, for
Alceste
had been requisitioned by one of the allies and now flew the Sardinian flag at her taffrail gaff.

After conferring with Charles, Bosun Porter and a senior hand from the French sailors' party, hurriedly inspecting several ships in the basin, they'd settled on a forty-gun frigate, an impressive ship to all outward appearances. Certainly not in cosmetics, but in lines.

Radical,
she'd been renamed after the Revolution. But she had been commanded by a procession of jumped-up quartermasters and bosuns promoted to officers from the lower deck. Then she'd been run almost by committee and the Rights of Man, with but the easiest maintenance neglected by a vote of her crew! She'd rarely gone to sea, and then only in fair weather. And after the arrival of the Royal Navy back in August, and the departure of Rear Admiral St. Julien's men,
Radical
had lain idle, stern-to at the eastern quays, sandwiched in between other frigates, and had slowly disintegrated, as all ships will, without reverent and daily care.

Her bottom, they could see, was weeded, but she'd been careened and breamed in May, and her coppering had supposedly been redone. The upper works were filthy and shabby, her bold paint faded and peeling so badly that she looked more like a merchant ship than a frigate, browned and seared, stained and gray. Her standing rigging was still sound, in need of slush and fresh tar, some hauling at the deadeye blocks to set her taut once more. Running rigging had stretched or shrunk, rope gone stiff and brittle, but a quick reroving with fresh from the warehouses could renew that. Once they set to, British sailors made half a day's labour of what might have taken her French owners a week.

The important thing was that, once swept fore and aft, swabbed out, and vinegared, all the accumulated rat droppings, spider webs and dust, piles of trash and detritus overboard, she would be roomy. She would have bags of space on that long, beamy mess deck to accommodate hundreds of refugees or soldiers for the short voyage to Gibraltar. Should the winds turn perverse, she had the waterline to make a goodly way close-hauled, the beam to survive rough seas, especially as short-handed as they'd be forced to man her. And there was depth enough on the orlop to store salt meats, water casks, wine and biscuit to feed a multitude for an entire month, if need be. And those salt rations already aboard were still fairly fresh, so provisioning took less time on her than it would have aboard another ship.

Guns? Lewrie was a bit worried about that aspect, though being in a convoy with warships near at hand shouldn't present too much danger.
Radical
's
former owners had been in the process of rearming, with eighteen-pounders to replace the twelve-pounders frigates usually bore. Some guns had come aboard before work had ceased in August, and she'd been robbed of artillery since, to augment the firepower of Coalition strong points ashore. As a consequence, she had only four eight-pounders on her quarterdeck and two long eight-pounders on her forecastle as chase guns. Her main deck carried only a dozen pieces of artillery, a pair of her original twelve-pounders forward, one to either beam, and a matching pair aft, beneath the quarterdeck—and eight eighteen-pounders, four per beam, fore and aft of the mainmast, all spaced out so far apart they appeared as afterthoughts. She was technically
en flute,
a warship stripped of artillery to make room for the transfer of troops. Were her gun ports to be opened, the empty ones would resemble the finger holes in a piccolo. But that was Alan's intent in the first place; another reason she was more suitable.

They could have taken others. There were even larger forty-four-gunned frigates, 3rd Rate 74's with even more space aboard—but they'd demand a much larger crew to work them properly. And some of those others had been in even poorer material state, so emptied of guns and rations that it would have taken a week to prepare them for sea, or were so weeded to the bottom of the basin, so neglected, it was a wonder they hadn't sunk at their moorings.

They chose her by midday on 17 December. And by dawn of the 18th, had her ready to warp out of her berth, set scraps of sail and work her out past the bombproof jetties, carefully keeping east'rd of the shoal which ran from the west jetty to the narrow channel through the log boom. By dinner, they were anchored close to the water-fort of Saint Louis, beneath the protective shelter of Fort La Malgue. They'd simmered up supper for their refugees the night before, and had served a cold breakfast and dinner by then. Though nothing they could do by way of hospitality could really cheer those refugees.

Chevalier Louis de Crillart had come aboard, a lieutenant in command of a remnant of his Royalist light-cavalry troop, about a dozen men all told, and their families. There was a Major de Mariel, whose vineyards and estate lay just a little east of Fort Saint Catherine, an infantryman with wife and three children, servants and their families, and perhaps twenty of his remaining soldiers and their families. Charles de Crillart's gunners—half of them had wives, girlfriends or kids. Some of Lewrie's own British Jacks had made the acquaintances of girls of their own, and had snuck out to fetch them to the guardhouse, onto
Radical
before she even left the quays. And they'd brought their parents and children or
their
friends, as well. After the great-cabins had been parcelled out to down-at-the-heels aristocrats and Royalist officers with families, the wardroom dog-boxes going to families, and the warrant and mate's quarters assigned to people with children, he threw up his hands, and let refugees simply hang blankets from overhead beams, tack canvas to carline posts to partition off small areas of mess deck. As cold and drizzly as it was, Lewrie might have to assign people to the gun deck, with old sails stretched taut over the boat beams in the waist, and let people doss down between the guns.

Madame de Crillart and Sophie de Maubeuge already had his sleeping coach. Louis and Charles, with two other single officers, shared a stack of straw mattresses in the dining space, and the day cabins were awash in once wealthy or once titled humanity; mattresses, luggage and children everywhere one looked. He was crammed into the chart space.

Finally, after receiving two more miserable boatloads of Royalists (though not their piles of possessions) and a reduced company of the 18th Regiment of Foot, the Royal Irish, he had to beg off. There were nearly 300 people aboard, excluding crew, and he didn't have room or food for a jot more.

“Where do I quarter my men, sir?” the officer of the 18th asked.

“We've space below, on the orlop, sir,” Lewrie informed him. “A stores deck, Lieutenant, uhm . . . ? between kegs and such, but . . .”

“Kennedy, sir,” the wiry infantry officer beamed, one of those fellows, Lewrie could see at a glance, who was able to abide almost anything with a smile upon his lips. “Stephen Kennedy,” he added, shaking hands jovially. “Yes, the orlop. We discovered all we wished to know, and
more,
'bout the orlop, on our bloody passage here. Bloody hate a sea voyage. Now we're whittled down so, well . . . more room for the men below. Hoped to have the whole regiment t'gether, what's left of us, but . . . any port in a storm, hey, Captain Lewrie?”

“Indeed, sir,” Alan smiled in reply. “Heard any more? How are things . . . ?” he asked, waving toward shore.

“Buggerin' awful, if you ask me, sir,” Lieutenant Kennedy grumbled with a scowl. “Bloody damned Dons, bloody damned Dagoes. Cut an' run, they did. We were at Mulgrave, night o' the sixteenth? Frogs broke through the Spanish. Our Captain Connolly, he rallied us, and a prettier set-to a man's never seen, sir. Held as long as we could, but had to retire . . . down to the shore, and
creep
to Balaguer. An' would ya believe, when we got there, the buggerin' Dons that'd run into the place took God's own sweet time to let us in, sir?”

“So I gathered,” Lewrie nodded.

“Latest now, sir,” Kennedy went on, blowing his nose on a calico handkerchief. “We lost Fort Malbousquet and Missicy. Damme,” he griped as a pack of children came tearing along the gun deck, hallooing and yelping, around and between them. “We were in town by then. That Artigues, and the Saint Catherine abandoned? Town, Malgue, and western forts was the new line. Well, the buggerin' Neapolitans, sir . . . just up an' ran! Nobody
firin
at 'em yet, just didn't want to be last into a boat, I s'pose, but by all that's Holy, off they went, shootin' in the very air . . . at their own shadows, more'n like . . . yelpin' like hounds on a scent. Up and left Missicy. And 'thout Missicy held, the Frogs could march on it, and cut Malbousquet off. Get into the town, too, I s'pose. So, out we had to march. Least I'm
told
we toppled the guns before we decamped, them on the town side. Could have held another day . . . 'cept for our . . . allies.”

“So the French have the western forts, the powder mills, Fort Millaud and all, by now?” Lewrie speculated, thinking that anyone in mind to burn the French fleet was going to have a very hot time of it, with French guns and sharpshooters that close to the basin.

“Far as I know, they do, Captain Lewrie. But I doubt the Frogs will be that active,” Kennedy chuckled. “Bless me, sir, but they've an eye, they see the writin' on the wall. Us packin' our traps, and away? All they have to do is sit back and cheer. No sense in killin' their own troops assaultin' Toulon, when it'll fall in their laps by tomorrow. And there's few soldiers I know who'll wish t'be the last man to die, just as the victory's won, d'ye see.”

“So at least the fleet gets away safe.”

“Aye, Captain Lewrie,” Kennedy honked again into his handkerchief. “
See
you're only a leftenant, but I learned to call the skipper of a boat Captain. Brevet promotion, hey?” he cajoled, getting chummy. “Now sir, when do we eat? I'm fair famished, an' so are me lads. Where's the officer's mess? And more important,
what
do we eat, sir?”

“Where, sir?” Lewrie had to smile. “Catch as catch can, sir. As for an officer's mess, we've not one. The great-cabins and wardroom are bung up with refugees. As for
what,
Lieutenant Kennedy . . . I sincerely hope the 18th Royal Irish is fond of salt beef, sir.”

“You just
won't
set a good table, willya now, sir?” Lieutenant Kennedy boomed heartily. “No port? No biscuit nor cheese, ah well. Oh, dear God, now . . . there's a pair o' rare'uns. Oh,
tell
me I've a cabin, man! One tiny shred o' privacy!” Kennedy sighed, looking with longing over Lewrie's shoulder.

Alan turned. It was Sophie de Maubeuge with, of all people, the young Phoebe, on the quarterdeck above them, chatting amiably, almost in each other's pockets, peeking into a basket they bore between them.

“I hate to
further
disabuse you, sir . . .” Alan grinned. “But the red-haired one is a vicomtesse, and under the protection of her two male cousins. Meanest pair o' blackguards ever you did see. T'other . . . she is, hmm . . . mine.”

“Oh, buggeration,” Kennedy sighed again. “
Told
you I bloody hate sea voyages.” He stomped off, bawling for his Sergeant, Rufoote, honking into his rag again, looking for a dry, empty spot.

Alan took time to ascend to the quarterdeck to join them, doffing his hat and making a formal leg.
“Bonjour, mademoiselles
. . . might I say
des plus belles mademoiselles.”

“M'sieur Lieutenant Luray, enchanté,”
Sophie beamed, dropping a graceful curtsy, though sharing an impish smile with Phoebe.

“M'sieur Alain, enchanté,”
Phoebe said, miming Sophie's graces. But laying subtle claim to him by using his first name. That tweaked one of Sophie's eyebrows in puzzlement. Lewrie compared the two, side by side. Sophie was fifteen, he knew, and Phoebe couldn't be any more than three or four years her senior, he thought, now that he had someone to compare her against. He cocked a brow as well, as if to caution Phoebe to mind her manners round Sophie, who probably was in total ignorance of her newfound friend's “profession.”

“M'sieur Luray, nous sommes sur
meesion of
merci,”
Sophie said, sounding more excited and happy than she had when last he'd seen her. “You be so kin'
à Phoebe, maintenant,
I 'ope you be kin'
à moi?
Ve 'ave ze grand need.
Voilà!
”

She pulled the lid of the basket back to reveal kittens. Four kittens, about two months old, he estimated; blinking and mewing when the wan sunlight struck them.