H.M.S. COCKEREL l-6

by Dewey Lambdin

  Fifteen miles, he marched off with a pair of brass dividers on the chart; fifteen miles of perimeter and approaches which had to be garrisoned and guarded, manned with troops and guns, if the coalition was to hold Toulon.

  Say Naples sends their promised 6,000, like the treaty said, he speculated-though what little he'd seen of Neapolitan troops, and that with an untrained sailor's eye, hadn't impressed him that much. And were their Military Commissariat anything like what Mister Husie had reported after visiting their naval supply establishment, then it was perhaps a cut above a barking shambles. But not by much.

  Sardinia, they're down for 50,000 men-say we get a tenth of that army we're paying good golden guineas for. Spain, of course…?

  Why of course! he snickered to himself, still amazed that they were now firm allies. Correction-just "allies." Just this morning, the Spanish fleet had come up over the horizon at last, like a Jack-in-the-Box, rushing in untidy order to enter harbour at the same time as the Royal Navy. Troops aboard, he wondered? Sure to be. Have to be!

  Spain had a huge army, but a narrow, rugged border with France along the daunting Pyrenees. Poor and downtrodden as their peasants were, as arrogant and stiff-necked-as benighted!-as their top-lofty aristocracy was, it was in Spain's best interests to send a big contingent quickly, to stamp the French Revolutionaries into the floor like cockroaches, before any of that "Rights of Man" egalitarian bumf caught on in Spain itself. He thought 10,000 men would be a safe wager. And English regiments, that went without saying. There were men at Gibraltar, and with Spain allied, there'd be no reason to keep them there, no worry about a siege such as the one his father'd gone through when he'd won his knighthood, in the last war but one. Troops out from home, too, if Lords Dundas and Grenville had been scheming this one up as long as Sir William Hamilton had alluded. Bags of 'em!

  Austria? Well, maybe too busy on France's eastern borders, Alan decided; they and the Prussians would mass to walk into France along the traditional routes, but part of the Austrian Empire was in northern Italy, so surely… another 6,000 or so, cutting west from Genoa or Leghorn? Or get us to escort transports from there, and bring 'em direct. And quick, he decided. It'll have to be quick, or… soon as they get word from us!

  That brightened his prospects for a moment. Despatches would go home, to all the allies. To Naples, for certain. Cockerel might sail on the next morning. He could go ashore again, visit Emma Hamilton one more time. Emulate some of those erotic Etruscan fragments they'd seen in their gallery of choice, the ones with the cavorting…

  Well, maybe that's not a good idea, he sighed, leaving the chart: wondering again where his conscience was hiding, or if he, in truth, had one. Once was enough… took the edge off. Every six months'r so…?

  His brief enthusiasm left him, and he shivered inexplicably to a brisk African wind on his left shoulder that gave no warmth.

  Hellish gloomy damn' place, he concluded.

  "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," he muttered.

  "Sir?" the senior helmsman inquired, shifting his quid to another cheek.

  "Nothing," Lewrie granted. "Steady as she goes."

  Chapter 2

  Perhaps it was just as well that Captain Horatio Nelson's sixty-four-gunned Agamemnon bore the word to Naples, Lewrie thought. With the French Mediterranean fleet captured in one fell swoop, all her proud, large line-of-battle ships in the bag, the more impressive British liners were freed to make the diplomatic calls about the region-those ships captained by men of greater stature and diplomatic experience.

  Cockerel idled about in the Golfe du Lion for a few days to keep an eye on Marseilles, round Cape Cicie to the west, before that pointless task was undertaken by a small squadron of British 74's, and she returned to Toulon. There was nothing much to guard against, since only a scattered handful of French frigates and corvettes were still free to operate, and those few were alone, uncoordinated and fearful.

  "You really can walk in their shade," Lieutenant Barnaby Scott commented as they toured the basin a few days later.

  Everywhere there was bustle. Proud French ships were being stripped of their guns and powder, rowing boats worked like a plague of water-beetles to carry captured supplies out to the Spanish and British ships. And a horde of curiosity seekers such as Lewrie and Scott had come ashore to gawp over all they'd won so easily, and crow with elation.

  And from the moment their cutter had touched a quay, they'd been gawped at in turn, cheered by Royalist Toulonese, gushed over by women and men with white Bourbon cockades on their coats or their hats. Any restaurant would kick Frogs out to seat them and fete them, any desire they had was fulfilled (mostly), and they couldn't seem to buy a drink in the town- it was given with bubbly expressions of gratitude. "Damn' friendly lot," Barnaby Scott opined. "For Frogs." There was martial music, clattering hooves on cobblestones and the heavy drumming of field-artillery carriages and caissons as a Spanish half-regiment paraded by above the basin, on the main water street.

  "S'pose we should be about our shopping," Lewrie shrugged, still uneasy with the concept of friendly Frenchmen. Besides, ambling about by themselves, surrounded by convict labourers in their filthy slops and irons, surrounded by milling packs of truculent and beetle-browed French sailors who were most pointedly not wearing Royalist cockades, and who hawked and spat behind their backs, or muttered sneering words behind their hands as they passed… well, they might be disarmed and supposedly harmless, but Lewrie didn't want to take the chance of risking the drunkest or the surliest of them. No matter how near help, in the form of Royal Navy working parties or Marine sentries, might be.

  On the northern shore of the basin's quays, it all spread out before them as they stopped and stood, gazing down upon the pool of water between the jetties and the warehouses, dry dock and arsenals: A host of docked warships, frigates, corvettes, gunboats, floating batteries (that looked more like ancient oared war galleys), 74's and 80's of the line, and two monstrous 120-gun ships of the 1st Rate, so huge they dwarfed all others, even British 1st Rates.

  "Comfortin' to know we'll have use of all these," Lewrie said on. "Frogs build damn' good ships. Finer entries, leaner quick-work… sail faster than ours, and that's a fact. Always have."

  "Ah, 'tisn't the ship makes the difference, sir," Scott scoffed, a trifle bleary from all the "gratitude" he'd taken aboard." Tis men who decide a battle. Frogs've never had the stomach for fighting, not at musket or pistol-shot, broadsides to broadsides. Lay off, so please you, and fire at your rigging! Pack o' spineless, snail-eatin' Mollies, they are. Frog-eatin' butt-fuckers. All they know how to do is mince!"

  "A little less of it, Mister Scott," Lewrie cautioned. "Those near us aren't mincing, exactly. Why don't you smile and nod?"

  "Shit on 'em, sir," Scott sneered. "Shit on 'em! I was raised t'hate a Frenchman worse'n 'Old Scratch' himself. Hate 'em worse than Dons, when you get right down to it. Damme if I'll pander to any Frog, no matter he's licking mine arse to save his. Let 'em bring on their guillotines, I say! Cut the odds down for us first, and we'll sort out the survivors later. And spare the world any more of 'em."

  "I truly do despair of you, Mister Scott," Lewrie replied sternly, not for the first time. Bluff, humorous and "me-hearty" as Scott could be, he had a surly side when he'd been tippling. Which he did about as often as the unfortunate "Little Left-enant Do-Little," Banbrook, in the past month or so, Lewrie had begun to notice.

  As that other unfortunate, Lieutenant Clement Braxton, had tried anew to ingratiate himself with his own messmates after his father's illness, it had been Scott who'd still have no truck with him. Which made it harder for the others to relent, to realise that the son was nothing like the sire, and accept his shy and clumsy offerings.

  "I despair of the whole shitten mess, sir," Scott gloomed, taken by a Blue-Devil mood of a sudden. "Braxtons and Brax-tons, then even more Braxtons, generation unto generation, pestiferous as Frogs in-"

  "Shut up," Lewrie snapped.


  "Sir?" Scott looked at him owlishly, like Falstaff called down by a drinking partner. But he did shut up, at least.

  "If you cannot control yourself, sir, go back aboard."

  "You'd deny me a few hours of peace, of freedom from our tyrants, sir?" Scott wheedled, sounding genuinely hurt. "Send me back to more-"

  "Shut up, Mister Scott!" Lewrie snarled. "I mean it. Aboard or ashore, there'll be no more of that talk. Sets yourself a bad habit. Carp all you like two years from now, when the commission's over, but manage yourself now, sir."

  "Mister Lewrie, you hate 'em as much as I do, as much as we both hate Frogs and Dons, I know it, so-"

  "Sir, will you obey me?" Lewrie demanded, suddenly fed up with it; with Scott, with his impossible task. And begrudging his own few hours of freedom, interrupted by a maundering, half-drunken pest. Scott was, he'd imagined-'til now, at least-a kindred spirit. Cynical, sarcastic, wryly funny to talk to, a rakehell and a rogue. But no, Scott had a deeper, darker streak that he didn't much care for.

  "Very well, sir," Scott replied stiffly, drawing himself up to a full height, doffing his hat in salute. "I'll say no more. I trust you may excuse me, then, sir? Since you find my company distasteful, I will spare you any further… I will take my leave, sir."

  "Very well, Mister Scott," Lewrie sighed, wondering if he had not lost the man's respect, and his authority over him, as well as what had passed for a tentative beginning to a career-long friendship. He suspected that he had; Lieutenant Barnaby Scott was the sort who'd hold a grudge over a trifle such as this, drunk or sober. "Keep yourself out of any trouble, Mister Scott. Your opinions anent Frogs, that 'd spare you no end of grief. And be back aboard by sundown."

  "Sir!" Scott said stiffly, almost clicking his shoe heels like a Prussian grenadier, and departing, a trifle unsteadily, parting a path through French citizens, subjects and sailors by his brusque mood and his daunting, damme-boy bulk and height.

  "Shit, I give up!" Lewrie sighed in a bitter whisper. He'd just lost an ally in the wardroom, perhaps made a sullen enemy. It was as if Scott felt betrayed that Lewrie, who should have been on his side, had aided Clement Braxton's tentative essays at camaraderie, much as a jilted lover might turn on the suitor who'd scorned her. "What next, I ask You?" Alan queried, turning his face up to the sky.

  "Pardon, m'sieur? Votre ami, 'e eez beaucoup trink, hein?"

  "What?" Lewrie snapped, turning to find his accuser. "Wait a bit." He brightened, trying to remember where and how he'd met a French naval officer, "Damme, I know you, don't I?"

  "St. Kitts? Votre fregate… mon fregate, ve bataille?" The other fellow beamed: "La Capricieuse? Et votre… corvette, I am s'inking…? Charles Auguste de Crillart, a votre service! Et vouz…"

  "Of course!" Lewrie exclaimed. "Alan Lewrie… a votre service, aussi, m'sieur. God, it's been years! Wasn't I your gaoler?"

  "Ah, mais oui, Alain Lewrie," de Crillart grinned, doffing his gold-laced hat and making a formal leg before shaking hands. "You vere ze meedshipman, zen. An' maintenant, ze lieutenant, hein? Con-grat-shu-lay-shins," he pronounced carefully, still capable of only fragmentary English. "Et votre ship?"

  "Cockerel," Lewrie laughed, then crowed like a rooster. "A la chanticlier? First officer, now. Premier officeur? Et vous, m'sieur?"

  "Ah, moi aussi! Premier lieutenant de fregate Alceste. She is 'ave ze trente-six canon… ze s'irty-six? Mais… las' mont ' Admiral St. Mien, 'e dismiss me, say I am Royalist, zo…"

  "You don't go by Baron de Crillart, either, I take it?"

  "Ah tres dangereux, mon ami," Crillart sighed heavily. "Avant ze Terror, tres early? I go to Paris to 'ow you say, un delegate in ze Etats-General. To sit? Oui, to sit as delegate. I am fill avec beaucoup d'elan, n'est-ce pas? I serve in America, I meet americains… read ze Bill of Rights, ze Declaration of Independence. Ze Paine, ze Jefferson an' Adams. An' I meet ze grande Lafayette, zo I s'ink wan I come 'ome… je suis ze nobleman, ze jeune homme, vis duty to aid ze country… 'elp amend eet. France is ze bankrupt, ze people starving, out of work. Ve vere not wealthy, powerful… old famille viz titles only, an' people in Normandie respect us."

  "Yet they ended up turning on you, after all?" Lewrie asked with sad foreknowledge, having read several accounts of the Revolution's early days, when it had looked to be a gentlemanly, civilised reform, not a peasants' revolt and a bloodbath.

  "Ah, oui. D'abord, ve dare un peu, a leetle?" Crillart said as he gazed out with sadness on the proud but idle ships. "Beet by beet zey dare more, an' ze radicals take over, zeyr decrees more revolutionnaire… incroyable! Zen, zey purge L'Etats-General. A bas aristos, hein? Down viz all aristocrats? I am dismiss. Revenir au Normandie… mais non, ze madness come zere, aussi. Neighbours, amis, peasants we know all zeyr lives turn agains' us. Mon pere, maman et moi, ve renonqons titles. Declare as citizens. Even zat buy us leetle safety."

  "So how did you get to Toulon, and stay in the Navy?" Alan asked.

  "Ah, avant ze Terreur, we sell ev'rys'in'. Bribes? I declare for Republique, zey need trained officeurs Jacobiste… I arrange post here an' bring maman, mon frere Louis. Mon pere, il est mort, of ze malade de coeur. Zo many Royalists in Toulon an' Provence, ve s'ink ve be safety. Ma cou-sine Sophie de Maubeuge, elle flee Paris, join us. More bribes, hein? Ev'rys'in' ve lose, mais notre vie… our lives. Maintenant…?"

  "You're safe as houses, maintenant, mon ami," Lewrie insisted to perk him up. "The Coalition is sending troops. We'll hold the place until we raise the whole of Southern France, and Austria and Prussia kick the doors to Paris down."

  "Zo do ze Republicains, ami Lewrie," de Crillart disagreed. "On ze west, General Carteau an' Citizen Mouret, zey conquer Marseilles a day before votre fleet enters. On ze east, General Lapoype an' ze Armee du Italic Nord, General Kellerman eez in Lyons, an' marchin' sud viz ze trente mille… ze s'irty s'ou-sand men."

  "Bloody hell, that many?" Lewrie frowned.

  "Mais, your soldiers, zey right Carteau an' Mouret las' week," de Crillart went on, cheering up slightly. "You' capi-taineEl…Elf…"

  "Elphinstone?"

  "Oui, Elphinstone. 'E comman' Britannique an' Espagnol soldiers. 'E beat ze Republicains 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," de Crillart allowed with another heavy shrug. "Ze Espagnol zey Ian' un mille… one s'ousand men. Royaliste Toulonese, peut~6tre two s'ousand men, only. Many, zey desert. 'Ave tres fear? Votre armee, viz matelote 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?" de Crillart asked.

  "Well, not exactly…"

  "Zen you mus' come 'ome viz me, ami Alain!" Lieutenant de Crillart cried. "Maman, Louis et Sophie, zey will be fill viz delight! An' ze cuisine a 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 g
uest. 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."

  Chapter 3

  They were, the de Crillarts, a rather nice family… for Frogs. After an hour of shopping and, with Charles' 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'1-deep with everything they'd hoped for.

  Lieutenant 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' 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.