H.M.S. COCKEREL l-6

by Dewey Lambdin

  "Don' know whether t'laugh'r cry, sir," Cony muttered as a cutter bore them shoreward. He was well turned out in a dark blue, round shell jacket, blue-and-white chequered gingham shirt, reasonably clean white slop-trousers and a stout pair of shoes, well blacked; as was his wide and flat-brimmed tarred sennet hat. A small sea-chest and a loose kit bag rested by his toes.

  "Amen to that, Cony," Lewrie sighed, looking back at Cockerel as she receded in the distance of the outer Road.

  "Weep, that's certain," Lieutenant Barnaby Scott gloomed beside him near the tillerman. "Christ, 'least she was a shipl"

  " 'Ell-ship, she were," someone up forward whispered, and Lewrie turned, but could not discover whether it had been one of his Cockerels who'd spoken out, or one of the anonymous oarsmen.

  As much as his own feelings on the matter of his expulsion were still unsettled, he could see the same mirrored on the faces of the men. Relief, a jeering, taunting joy, now they were free of their oppressors… or a darkly glum glower. Hell-ship or not, she'd been home, anchor to the familiar, and now these sailors were cast adrift, cut off from fellow sufferers with whom they'd come to enjoy sharing their suffering.

  "Feel I've just been sent down from Harrow," Lewrie smirked, trying to buoy his emotions, turning again to study his ship.

  "Hmmph!" from Lieutenant Scott, hulking over him. Hmmph! to good public schools, to class and advantage, perhaps. Or to being "sent down" with Lewrie, through no fault of his own, and brooding on the injustice done him. Scott abhorred Cockerel and his Braxtons, one and all, yet… now he was just as adrift as one of the snuffling powder-monkeys, torn from the comforts of the wardroom, the certainty of a limited world, and his rightful station in it. His duties and his honour, which were simple and understandable. Ashore, God knew what he'd be asked to do, how far out of his proper depth he'd be tossed. And from his black glower and his Hmmph!, Lewrie knew he highly resented his loss. And the poor sort of company with which he'd been marooned.

  Lewrie got his party ashore at the north quay of the basin, drew their attention back to him from their rubbernecking and gawping about at the massive ships, the immensity of all they'd captured.

  There was a post-captain to receive them, with a harried midshipman who bore a sheaf of pages. And there was nothing more dangerous in the entire Royal Navy than a midshipman with temporary authority and a sheaf of orders he thought he understood.

  "Mister Lewrie, Mister Scott, sirs," the teen said crisply. "I've orders your party will berth in yon guardhouse, sirs. Hard by the gate to the dockyard, just cross there, sirs? Temporary, I believe, but… if you would be so good as to follow me, sirs?"

  Off they went, with Lewrie, Scott and the bosun's mate whipping-in the stragglers like exasperated sheepdogs.

  "Bloody 'ell, ye can't go adrift in a furlong, can ye, Newton?" Porter snapped. "Keep yer mind on it! An' who's the fool wot lef 'is sea bag b'hind? Bloody…!"

  The guardhouse had been a barracks for the dockyard sentries, and the hands oohed and ahhed as they quickly explored it, hooting with pleasure as they discovered its luxuries.

  " 'S got the real beds, it 'as!" Sadler boomed from the back. "No more 'ammocks!"

  "Bloody hell, they's good mattresses, too, lads, lookit!"

  "They's a well inna back, an' 'and wash stands. Pumpwater, an' coal grates. Us kin make 'ot!" a younger voice piped in wonder.

  "There are officers' quarters above, sirs," the midshipman said in a softer voice. "Rather nice, I'm told. Conveniently placed, so you may keep an eye on them after dark. These…"

  He indicated a locked rack of muskets, Sj;. Etienne Arsenal,.69 cal., a case of bayonets, a wall hung with powder horns and cartridge boxes, crossbelts and infantry hangers.

  "I'm afraid your men will have to use these, for lack of British arms, sirs," he told them with a faint moue of disgust. "Anything else you need, sirs, simply go cross to the warehouses on the west side and indent for. The Frogs have mountains of supplies."

  "Temporary, you said? Any idea what we're to do, now we're here?" Lewrie asked.

  "Not the faintest, sir, sorry. Once you've settled your people, you may inquire at the Governor's offices, uphill yonder, sir, in that house with the flagpole. Can't miss it. King's Colours and a Spanish flag flying. Military commandant is a Don, Rear-Admiral Gravina. Will that be all for now, sir?"

  "Aye, I suppose," Lewrie sighed.

  He did a quick inspection of their quarters. The guardhouse was fairly dirty, Uttered with discarded trash, castoff uniforms and such, the blankets piled in a stinking heap, and half the cooking equipment missing. There was dust, lint, some roach-like scuttling…

  "Right, lads, muster in the guardroom!" he shouted, hauling his charges from their delighted play. Some of the younger hands were dotted with feathers from overly exuberant pillow fighting.

  "First off, we're going to clean this pigsty from truck to keel," he announced, to a faint chorus of groans. "Working parties. Mops and buckets, brooms and all. Get the French stink out of this place. It's to be our mess deck, and you know proper British seamen'U never abide filth. A total scrub-down fore and aft, up the walls and down. Hose it out, if that's what it takes. Those blankets reek. Chuck 'em over. I expect our hosts pissed on 'em 'fore they left, just to be Froggish. You've your own, and we may draw an extra blanket for each man from the warehouses. Lisney, you know your way around a galley?"

  "Aye, sir, some," Lisney confessed, wincing at what he feared to hear, at what onerous duties he might be ordered to perform.

  "Take two hands and set the galley right, see what's needful for cooking. I'll want to eat off the deck, I want it that clean. Any pots and such we may draw from the warehouses, later. And we'll decide who does the cooking later, too. Cony, there're officers' quarters above. See to setting them right. Take two hands to help you. Bosun Porter? A sentry at the door, now. Draw equipment from these racks. Count 'em first, then keep 'em under lock and key. And appoint two men masters-at-arms to help you. You men in the duck feathers. Just 'cause things don't belong to you is no reason to destroy them."

  "Thought that was what wars were all about," Lieutenant Scott muttered, just loud enough to be heard, and to elicit a laugh.

  "Silence!" Lewrie snapped, his neck burning with anger. "Listen to me carefully. Just because we're ashore doesn't mean you're any less out of the Navy's eye. We're not here to gambol, we're not here for a 'Rope-Yarn Sunday.' I, or any officer, will read the Articles of War the same as if we were on Cockerel's decks," he said, turning to glare a warning to Scott. "We may guard the harbour and basin, or we might end up in those bloody great hills behind us, manning guns, eye to eye with French soldiers, living rough as any Redcoat. And the man who forgets that, the man who acts like this is a lark, the one who doesn't believe I'm a taut hand, well… God help his soul. And his back."

  He made an effort to lock eyes with every hand, even those back in the rear of the guardroom who were shying sheepish and hangdog at his sternness.

  "Right," he concluded. "Let's be about it. Mister Scott? A word with you, sir."

  "Aye, sir," Scott nodded, clenching his massive jaws.

  "Outside, sir," Lewrie ordered, walking out on him. He paced a good ten yards, well out of ear-shot, before rounding on him. "Damn you, sir. Don't you ever make mock of me in front of the hands. Don't you ever dare make light of why we've come ashore. Heard of Yorktown, have you, Mister Scott?"

  "Aye, sir, and I know you made a name-"

  "Damn you, that is not what I mean, sir!" Lewrie thundered. 'Take a good look about, Mister Scott. Fifteen bloody miles of border, and we mean to hold it with less than four thousand men? With three armies on the way to crush us? Aye, they're Frog armies, peasants in rags to you, not worth the powder to blow their tag-rag-and-bobtail arses away, hey? And we're here, you and I, with charge of twenty hands. And if one of them dies because you didn't take this bloody serious… damn it! They are our men, sir! We own the grave responsibility to care for them, to fe
ed 'em, tuck 'em in, fight 'em… and maybe die with 'em, if it comes to that."

  "I see, sir," Scott sobered, a little of his rancour receding.

  "Nothing like a lark, is it, Mister Scott?" Alan demanded, though more softly. "You may resent me to the Gates of Hell if you wish. Feel sorry for yourself gettin' slung ashore all you want. I mean to keep as many of these men alive as I can, sir, do we win or lose. But I can't do that with you sulking behind my back, and giving them the impression we're off to 'Fiddler's Green.' They're as much your responsibility as a sea officer as they are mine, you know. I will have your support and your loyalty, sir, no matter your grudges. Or else. As my father'd say, 'Shut up and soldier.' "

  "Aye, aye, sir," Scott grunted, nodding vigorously, his face red. Whether with more resentment or shame, Lewrie didn't much care at that moment. Just as long as Scott did his job.

  Chapter 5

  The first use of their services, though, was nothing even close to bellicose. Toulon was still plagued by the presence of nearly 5,000 truculent French sailors, most of whom either openly or secretly supported the Revolution, with a fair minority who might not have adored the Republic, exactly, but were mortal certain they could not abide British or Spanish troops on the sacred soil of La Belle France. The town rang to their disobedience, their drunkenness, daily. And, seeing how many they were, even disarmed, and how few Coalition troops were present, it would only be a matter of time before they arose, weaponless or not, or began to engage in sabotage.

  Lewrie's party, with others, readied five ships from the basin to take them away. Five of the least serviceable-an eighteen-gunned brig of war named Pluvier, the 3rd Rate 74's Orion, Entreprenant, Patriote and Trajan-were taken out of ordinary, stripped of all their guns but two eight-pounders, stripped of all their powder but for twenty light, saluting or signalling charges, and stocked with food and water. Then they were warped or towed to the Great Road, and the French seamen, and those officers who wished to depart, were put aboard. Under flags of truce, they departed for Bordeaux, for Rochefort, L'Orient and Brest, on the Biscay coast, on 14 September.

  "And that," Lewrie told himself over a glass of wine that evening at Lieutenant de Crillart's favourite open-air bistro, "will make Toulon a much quieter place, all round."

  Fumm! Umumm. Crack-whish!

  "What the Devil?" Alan cried, leaping from his bed. He flung the shutters to his room open to peer out, to look down at the seaman sentry at the door of the guardhouse below him in the small courtyard.

  Fumm, fumm! And echoes. Followed by two more crack-whishes.

  "Some'un's firm' cannons, I reckon, sir," the sentry called up to him in reply to the perplexity on his face. "Soun' like h'it's ah comin' fum yonner, sir." The sentry pointed vaguely sou'west.

  Clad in only his shirttails, Lewrie fetched his telescope and leaned out the window. Bang went the shutters on a neighbouring room and Scott peered out blearily, rubbing sleep from his face with rough hands. He'd made a rare night of it in the city, a proper, caterwauling "high ramble." A moment later, a pert female face, capped with a mass of dark brown curls, appeared next to his. She was clad only in a sheet. Wide-eyed and excited, she seemed equally curious as to the source of the noise and what her neighbour looked like.

  "Morning, Mister Scott," Lewrie took time to smile.

  "Argh," Scott muttered, wiggling his tongue and grimacing with the taste of cognac still in his mouth. "Morning, Mister Lewrie, sir," he managed, thick-headed. "What the Devil's goin' on?"

  "Bonjour, m'sieur Luray," the girl called cheerfully.

  "Bonjour, mademoiselle," Lewrie replied with an approximate bow.

  "Phoebe," Scott supplied gruffly, dry-swabbing his face some more and knuckling his eyes, child-like. "I think she said. Scrawny little chit, but…" He shrugged and gave her a pinch, making her yelp.

  But damned fetching, Lewrie took more time to note.

  "Sounds like it's coming from beyond Fort Malbousquet," Alan said, returning to professional matters. "Maybe that General Carteau finally marched from Marseilles, got his guns up during the night. I…"

  There was a slowly rising tumulus of powder beyond Mal-bousquet, and the hills to the sou'west, sour-looking, greyish tan. Fummjummjumm! this time in rapid succession, and another belch of smoke rose into the sky, a twining, twisting ball to join the rest. Umummum they echoed on the hills. Yet there were no strikes on Fort Malbousquet, the most important redoubt which guarded the western approaches. Lewrie swung his telescope right and left, to see what they were shooting for. There!

  Crack-crack^crack!

  Explosive shells burst when their fuses burned down. But burst in the Little Road, around the anchored prize-frigate Aurore and two floating batteries. Two went off very close to the water, roiling the road waters with spreading trout splashes of ripples; the third burst too high, due to a shorter fuse, scattering iron slivers that created a miniature hail storm across the waters beneath an unfolding rose of powder smoke.

  Fwnm-fumm! came a double report, from a second set of guns this time, a little farther off to the south. These were improperly fused, too. They fell into the roadstead, erecting tall twin candlesticks of spray as they struck and sank. Followed a moment later, as the fuses reached their powder charges, by dirty humps of smoke grey foam, which hoisted aloft in gigantic feather-like plumes as tall as mast trucks.

  "Masked batteries," Lewrie said to one and all. "Heavy guns, by God."

  "Siege guns," Scott opined, awake now. "Twenty-four-pounders?"

  "Firing masked, though…" Lewrie countered, shaking his head.

  Fumm-fumm-fumm! He began counting the seconds to himself. Now that he was listening for it, Alan could hear the faint shrieking moan of shells lofted through the early morning air. Three new pillars rose in the Little Road, hopelessly wide of the ships. So far.

  "Mile and a half, I think, Mister Scott," he called out. "Don't think they're siege guns. Firin' masked, they'd have to elevate high, and anything over what? eight degrees or so'd-burst the barrels."

  "Howitzers," Scott guessed.

  "What's an army lug about," Lewrie shouted back, getting excited there might be some action at last. "Six, eight, or twelve-pounder howitzers? Little too far, even for them. I think they must be mortars."

  He'd experienced mortars; all those weeks under the drumfire of a French artillery train at Yorktown, aiding the Rebels. Twelve- or thirteen-inch they'd been, some as big as sixteen-inch. Massive shells they'd fired, solid shot, bursting shell, their fuses glowing in the night like fiery banshees-and carcases; flaming wads soaked in anything that'd burn… and keep on burning once they buried themselves in a house… or a ship.

  "Les Republicains?" little Phoebe asked fearfully, pulling her sheet up higher about her. "Mon dieu!"

  "Well, they ain't the Royal Horse Artillery," Scott sneered.

  "Oui, mademoiselle, ils sont les Republicains," Lewrie told her. "Mister Scott, get the hands mustered. I'll dress and run up to headquarters to see what's what."

  "Ve 'ave brea'fas', Barnaby?" Phoebe asked. "Le petit dejeuner?"

  "Run along, squirrel, there's work to do," Scott said.

  That shelling had started on 18 September. Next day, more batteries had opened fire upon the tightly packed ships in the Little Road-batteries masked by the sheltering heights of La Petite Garenne and another middling hill a little sou'west of the first. Twenty-four-pounder siege guns joined in, too, firing direct, though at maximum elevation on their trunnions, from high ground near La Seyne, the civilian harbour.

  This forced some of the shipping to move, out through the Gullet to new anchorages in the Great Road to the east, or closer in towards the jetties of the basin. A brace of gunboats, floating batteries, were got out of the yards, manned and sent to the nor'west arm of the Little Road near Fort Millaud and the Poudriere, the powder-magazine. And they were reinforced by a full crew of gunners on the Aurore, and the presence of Rear-Admiral John Gell's flagship, the mighty ninety-eight-
gunned, three-decker St. George.

  The French had the advantage, though, of being masked, their exact position unknown, and were able to fire with more or less scientific accuracy from stable, fixed positions, with observers to correct the fall-of-shot. Sooner or later, trigonometry, ballistics, and the right guesstimate on powder measure to be ignited, and the right length of fuse to be fitted, would score a hit, and that a devastating one.

  The British gunners could only roughly guess where behind the masking hills the batteries were, firing from ships which, even at anchor, shifted and recoiled with each massive discharge. They had to probe with their shells, much like a blind man must feel for the kerb with his cane, hoping for the best.

  French fire was so gallingly accurate, towards the afternoon of the 19th, that the gunboats had to slip their cables and retire. They returned to the duel on the morning of 20 September. And by midday, one of the floating batteries was hit and damaged, and the second was sunk outright.

  This they watched from a post on the basin's western jetty, engaged in trundling powder and shot out to the thirty-two-and forty-two-pounders, just in case… Between trips, during a dinner break, or a rest stop with mugs of appallingly piss-poor French beer, Lewrie and his men had ringside seats, right up to the ropes, as it were, where they could best see the opponents toe up and square off.