Smaller bundles, too much resembling the hopeful rolls of sailcloth, also littered the starboard gangway, and about the thick foot of the main-mast trunk in a thigh-high heap, stacked like cordwood to free deck space for the working-parties.
Those were the corpses.
The dead had been hastily shrouded, without the benefit of washing first, so their coverings were not the ecru of new canvas, nor the darker, weather-stained parchment dun of used. They were splotched or even brightly splashed with drying gore, the bile and ordure of gutted men. Slain in mid-morning, they still awaited transport ashore to the cemetery outside the port, and it was now nearly sunset. The horrible day had been very hot and still. They already stank.
Le Bouclier's survivors avoided the stacks if they could, walking on eggs as far away as possible, but too tired, too dulled by fear and shock by then to hold their noses at the mounting reek, studiously ignoring them, most of the time. If they could.
It was only when a dead man somewhere in the sloping mass round the main-mast, swelled with rapid tropic putrefaction, vented the foul gases in eerie groans or sighs that the matelots would take notice and leap away in alarm, crossing themselves in dread that some poor devil under the pile still lived and was trying to worm out from under that crushing weight, calling for aid from his shipmates, with whom he had laughed and japed just a few hours before.
And sailors of any nation were superstitious. They could quite easily believe that somewhere among those bundled, shattered husks the confused, terrified spirits of the slain were beginning to stir, to walk and wail as night drew nigh to torment the living until properly buried ashore.
The stench of the dead lay over Le Bouclier like a harbour fog, and the Trade wind, fading with the heat of the day, could not disperse it leeward. Belowdecks, the air was even closer and hotter, even more foetid despite the rigging of wind-scoops, and the liberal use of vinegar and wash-water to scour the decks. A miasma from wounded sailors stashed below continually welled up like hot smoke from a chimneypot, as if driven by their wails, moans, and frantic, fretful mumblings, as they weighed their odds of living, or faced the certain prospect of dying. Half-drunk on rum or cheap brandy used to dull their pains or allay the shock of amputation, their desperate prayers and weepings seemed to create the wind that wafted the stink of their wounds aloft through companionways, scuttles, and limber holes, ever renewable, no matter what brief relief a gust of the Trades might bestow.
Screams and half-shrieked pleas soared upwards, too, as the surgeon and his mates, civilian surgeons from the town of Basse-Terre, and even an exalted physician or two plied their gruesome trade. Bone-saws rasped now and then when amputations were necessary. They were necessary quite often; they were quicker than any attempt to draw out shards of wood splinters, bits of cloth, shot-scraps or shattered bone chips, leaving time to deal with those who needed careful attention. Supposedly, a healthy young man could recover, could live without use of a foot, a hand, an arm, or a leg.
Guillaume Choundas kept station well up to windward, as best he was able, clumsily perched atop the breech of a quarterdeck gun as doleful reports came to him. His monstrous countenance was set in a grim and stoic, brooding death-mask, broken only by a snarling decision or abrupt jerk of his head as the messengers stood near, shivering in dread of him. His cane was leaned on the gun-carriage, so he could use his remaining hand and a silk handkerchief to whisk the swarms of flies, and the stinks, briefly away.
The flies, large and pustulently bottle-green, had found them even before the frigate had begun to limp shoreward, two whole miles offshore; moments after the thrice-damned British frigate had jauntily sailed out of arcs, or reach, of their guns. The flies' numbers had only increased once they had anchored within a cable of the quays.
Though their numbers were equal to a Biblical Plague, Choundas noted that they no longer darted about quite as frantically as before. He imagined they were now sated, merely buzzing about to boast another of their… victories. Another of their mortal feasts!
"… able to get one boat down before the fire got so hot that we had to abandon her, mynheer" grizzled Dutch captain Haljewin was explaining, a dirty, rumpled handkerchief to his own nose.
"Lost your ship, lost the munitions and rations for our General Rigaud and his Mulatto Republic," Choundas rasped, not even bothering to glance at the man. "Better you pretended to strike, and fetched-to.
"The British devil gave us no chance, mynheer" Haljewin protested. "He crossed my stern and shattered us, crushed our side in with a second broadside, then sailed on without a second glance, as if they'd known whose cargo it was! Had they fired a warning shot and ordered me to strike, I would have, believe me. It would have given you half an hour to come to my rescue, while they were fetching-to and boarding us, but…"
"You knew we were here, Citizen Haljewin," Choundas said, looking up at last, his one eye ablaze in accusation. "You saluted us as you cleared the port, when we came in plain sight, rounding Le Vieux; Fort! Had you been the slightest bit clever, scared to save your…"
"He gave me no time, I tell you, mynheer!" Haljewin interrupted. "Perhaps he recognised you as a frigate, and would not…"
"I'll take no back-talk from you… Citizen!" Choundas bawled. "Citizen… not mynheer" he insisted, sneering over the word. "You utter, spineless failure. You idiot! Get out of my sight!"
"I did save your sailors off L'Abeille … Citizen," Haljewin pointed out, though gulping with sudden dread.
"But not the fool in charge of her, who should pay with his head I for her loss," Choundas barked.
"In the beginning, she did fly French flags, she looked so…" the Dutch merchant master all but babbled in deepening dread. "I was fooled, as were the shore watchers, I gather. She displayed the proper identity signals. I suspect there is a British spy on Guadeloupe who told them everything. If that is the case, Citizen Kaptein, I do not see how I was so much at fault. I've lost my ship and half my stalwart lads, my livelihood… and I saved at least a dozen of your poor sailors. One would hope that counts for something. One would hope that some recompense is made, in recog-"
"Go to the Devil!" Choundas roared, fumbling for his cane as an impromptu weapon. "You knew the risks and you took them, eagerly, I for gain, you wheedling… shop-keeper! Get… off… this… ship… and… off… Guadeloupe… Island, before I kill you myself!" he thundered, so irate that he was almost breathless, spacing out his words more in need than emphasis.
The Dutchman backed away, eyes saucered in stark terror, breaking into a quick scamper for the entry-port as soon as he was past the reach of Choundas's cane. A naval officer coughed into his fist, and scraped his feet, having waited with his news until the dread harangue had ended.
"What?" Choundas snapped. "You are?"
"Pardon a moi, m'sieur Le Capitaine" the officer, with an arm in a sling, and his coat draped over his shoulders. "I?m Lieutenant Mercier, Second Officer? Lieutenant Houdon, our First Officer, wishes to report that the shot-holes on the waterline are now plugged, with no need for entering the graving dock, m'sieur. If she is careened at the beach, permanent replacement planking can be done quickly. Pointe-a-Pitre's storehouses can supply us with new top-masts. Enough rope of sufficient thickness and quality to replace stays, and the running rigging may be a difficulty, unless…"
"We will take it from some merchantman," Choundas gravelled as he looked aloft in the fading light to assay the gaps in the maze of rigging and masts. "Why isn't Lieutenant Houdon reporting to me?"
"The First Officer, m'sieur, is aft in the great-cabins, with Capitaine Desplan," Mercier explained. "The Capitaine goes away from us," he said, using the squeamish euphemism for "dying."
Choundas had despaired. For a brief minute or two, he thought that Le Bouclier had won through, after all, and had gotten organised for a single-ship battle…'til that first, devastating broadside in her masts and rigging that was so un-English an opening move. Draped in wreckage, gun-ports masked and arti
llery smothered, making it too dangerous a risk of fire to reply, he and Capitaine Desplan could do nothing but stand on the quarterdeck and grieve, wincing at the coming broadsides, which had killed or wounded nearly an hundred of her crew. The sad grimace on Desplan's honest, Celtic-Breton face…! A moment later, and the mizen top-mast and shattered cro'jack yard crashed down on him, mashing his midsection and hips, breaking both legs in several places. Manful, without a cry, Desplan had been freed, borne aft by loyal, weeping matelots who truly admired him, uttering faint gasps, flinching, and going "ah-ah-ah!" at each seating jounce. He had known, even as the masts came down, that the gallant Desplan would be dead by sundown. It had been a fellow Breton's "sight."
Perhaps Desplan had felt one, himself, for he had not tried to move out of the way, but had just gazed upwards as if transfixed before being enveloped and crushed. Had he had a sudden foreboding that his race was run? Choundas idly drew the brass foot of his cane over the irregularities in the splintered and warped deck. Omens and portents. Signs and messages from elder Celtic gods… in whom Choundas still believed. For had not the ominous raven cawed and alit, on his right, just minutes before that salaud Lewrie had all but blown his arm away with an impossible single shot, three times the best musket range, the last time they had crossed swords in the Genoese hills?
Lewrie! The Proteus frigate! It was inconceivable that Lewrie, that swaggering, irreverent, and bawdy brute, could be that clever, that he had appeared by mere coincidence! Surely, he had been aided, aimed by his betters, his masters. The Dutchman, Haljewin's, feeble excuses and attempt to point the finger somewhere else just might have a grain of truth to them. Choundas dismissed Lt. Mercier's presence as utterly as he ignored the droning flies, in speculation of betrayal and treason done by someone close to Governor-General Hugues, or close to himself.
It would have to be someone on Guadeloupe with access to secret signal books, the new private signals that had come out from France in this very ship! Someone who could get access to fishing boats so they could be smuggled to the lurking British, or pass them to a spy already in place who could make the arrangements. Someone who had seen a copy of Kaptein Haljewin's cargo manifests of all they sent to bolster General Rigaud's forces, the largesse to buy his allegiance once Citizen Hedouville got ashore on Saint Domingue and contacted Rigaud with the Directory's proposal to make him the new ruler… in the name of France.
The British… such a perfidious race, thinking themselves so very clever and subtle, Choundas thought, sneering. Had they intended to flaunt Lewrie in his face to divert him from his plans, as if he was so brainless, so driven by a need for revenge that he'd fly after him, mewl in mad circles like a kitten chasing a streamer of wool yarn?
Well, he'd see about that, the fools! He shifted his good leg under him and slid off the gun breech, bracing himself erect with his cane.
"Maitre?" he heard Lt. Hainaut say by his side. Lt. Mercier had departed, perhaps minutes before after suffering his inattention. "I thought you could use some refreshment," he added, offering a shiny pewter mug, and an arm on which to lean, but Choundas brushed him off, to make his own way to the break of the quarterdeck nettings, creaky in his joints from long stillness, and long-ago maiming.
Clump-shuffle-tick… clump-shuffle-tick, 'til he could lean upon the railings and discard his cane, with the ever-solicitous Hainaut at his elbow the whole way.
"Watered wine, m'sieur. Quite cool," Hainaut tempted.
Choundas turned his head to study him for a moment. There was a subtle difference to Hainaut's voice, to his demeanour; not quite so much smarmy deference as he usually displayed, which deference always secretly amused Choundas, to see his protege toady so eagerly, yet be so ambitious and scheming, and imagine that he disguised it. Now he sounded… smug. Pleased with himself, of a certainty, but self-confident as well. Daring to be his own man, not Choundas's, was he?
"Merci, Jules," Choundas allowed, reaching out for the pewter mug, now that his hand was free, and took a long gulp or two.
"All those poor men… never had a chance, m'sieur," Hainaut mourned, removing his hat (rather the worse for wear, Choundas noted) and shaking his head sadly, as if honouring the dead and wounded.
"A waste of good material, Jules," Choundas growled. "But we will be free of them by dawn. Had we met les anglais far out at sea we would be cursed with them for days. After all, good Catholic widows cannot re-marry until some bit of their dead husbands is shipped for burial in France," Choundas said with a dismissive sing-song. "In the dirt, with the worms! Following the old customs and superstitions we would have been forced to bury them in the gravel ballast belowdecks until we came into port. Peu! What ancient… idiocy!" he scoffed.
"Eu, merde" Hainaut grimaced in seeming agreement.
"The 'Bloodies' shove their dead out a gun-port without even a kind word," Choundas casually informed him between appreciated sips of his wine. "Those too mangled to live, they bash on the head with gun-tools or mallets, then shove them over, unconcious, to drown. That is British… mercy, hein?'
"We must avenge them, m'sieur," Hainaut vowed with some heat to his voice. "We must strike back. We cannot let this pass unanswered."
Choundas eyed him more closely. Hainaut's zeal for vengeance sounded suspiciously like true conviction, not one of his usual poses. What had gotten into the lad? Choundas had to wonder.
"All in good time, Jules," Choundas promised with a sly smile. "But I shall not be diverted by such a silly, sentimental passion."
"Even if it was that salaud, Lewrie, m'sieur? I saw him plain, close enough to read his ship's name, close enough to recognise him at once,' Hainaut declared, half-questioning, but mostly boasting in case his master had forgotten how bravely he had shown.
Choundas uttered an evil little laugh, turning his gaze on his aide, the sort of appraisal that would shrivel the scrotums of braver men. Choundas had seen L'Impudente's attack. Jules had never gotten quite as close as that, but… was there anything praiseworthy to the whole disastrous day, his terrier-nip charges had seemed to drive away the 'Bloodies,' in the eyes of the town's inhabitants, the uninformed.
"You did well today, Jules," Choundas decided to say.
"Merci, m'sieur," Hainaut responded, turning so hellishly stern and heroically "modest" that Choundas had to bite down on the lining of his cheek not to laugh in his face at such posturing.
"I must give this frigate a new captain, Jules," Choundas began.
"M'sieur?" Hainaut asked, as if it were grievous news to him and indeed a mortal pity, hope and greed rising despite his best efforts.
"Griot, I think," Choundas continued, between sips of his wine. "Lieutenant Houdon to take Griot's corvette. He could not serve under a new man, when he is senior enough for a ship of his own. He makes a good impression, n 'est-ce pas? That fellow Mercier, I think his name is, promoted to First Officer under Griot. He kept a cool head on his shoulders during the worst of our drubbing."
And me? Hainaut furiously thought; And what for me?
"Griot obviously will wish to bring one of his lieutenants with him, so he has one familiar face in his coterie," Choundas speculated.
"Quite understandable," Hainaut allowed, though squirming with expectation.
"Leaving a Lieutenant's berth open aboard Le Gascon" Choundas temptingly decided. "Does anyone able spring to mind, Jules?"
"Well…" Hainaut began to say, averse to just blurting out to one and all his aspirations. "If he wasn't such a failure, there is that Recamier fellow, m'sieur, but… heh, heh."
"No, he's commanded a ship, after all. To be made Third Officer under another… that is not the use I eventually intend for him. After he has had enough time to ponder his 'sins,' " Choundas quibbled.
"Well, if we're really desperate, m'sieur, I could, ah… that is to say, might a spell of sea-duty continue my nautical education as an officer?" Hainaut finally flummoxed out. "I can already hand, reef, and steer, stand a watch, as Capitaine Desplan allowed
me as we sailed to Guadeloupe, and…"
"You do merit some reward, Jules, oui" Choundas grumbled. "As junior-most officer, well… hmmm. I must think on that. Come. Let us board your ratty little schooner. Take me back to Pointe-a-Pitre. You can show me what a tarry young man you are, hein?"
"But of course, m'sieur" Hainaut said with an enthusiasm that he did not feel, almost despising the sly bastard for taunting him so cruelly. But with such a cruel ogre, what could he really expect?
"And once in my own bed, after a good supper, I will sleep on it Jules, I promise," Choundas vowed.
"You will not visit Capitaine Desplan, before he goes away from us, m'sieur?" Hainaut asked without thinking.
"I think not, Hainaut," Choundas said, more frostily, as if he had been criticised. "The good Capitaine fell as a true Breton sailor and warrior, without complaint or regret. To paw over him and weep a flood of loss is womanly. I will make a proper oration at his grave. Hurry, now, Jules. It has been a long, long day, and I'm weary."
"Aye, m'sieur" Hainaut replied, walking close to Choundas for a prop, should he need it, as they went to the entry-port.
And after serving you so well, so long, Hainaut mutinously told himself; you wouldn't even come to say goodbye to me if I fell? Your tool… disposable tool, and nothing more. Just give me even a tiny ship, and I'll make my own way, from here on.
Havoc`s Sword Page 17
