“That does, Mister Hardinge,” Lewrie answered, feeling a thrill of satisfaction that what all had expected had come to pass. “Mister Warburton, pass the word for Mister Westcott at once. My compliments to him, and that he is to attend me in proper order.”
“Aye aye, sir!” his own Midshipman, Warburton, shot back, beaming with joy that it would be war.
“Where away, Mister Hardinge?” Lewrie asked of Modeste’s anchorage, after turning aside to summon his Cox’n and boat crew.
“Off the Monkton Fort, sir . . . yonder,” Hardinge supplied. “She will be the two-decker flying a broad pendant with white ball, and has dark red hull stripes, sir. Can’t miss her.”
“Speak for yourself, young sir,” Lewrie japed. “It’s a bit too early for my Cox’n’s eyes. Captain Blanding plannin’ to breakfast us?”
“I am certain he will, sir,” Midshipman Hardinge further assured him, smiling for the first time and relaxing his tense pose; he’d not had his head bitten off after all!
A red broad pendant with a white ball upon it denoted a senior officer who would command a small squadron, a Post-Captain who for all appearances might as well be a Commodore but lacked that rank and had to captain his own ship, without another of Post-rank to take that burden. And Modeste, his putative flagship, was a sixty-four gunned two-decker of the Third Rate, with a French name and of obvious French construction—a previous capture for certain. Sixty-fours were a bit too light to stand in the line-of-battle anymore, but were still useful outside European waters. Her lines, the fineness of her entry and bow, and her aft taper made her look fast for a two-decker.
I live long enough, I could do worse, when my frigate days’re done, Lewrie told himself as he took the salute from Modeste’s Marines and side-party, then was escorted aft to Capt. Blanding’s great-cabins under the poop.
“Captain Lewrie, and Lieutenant Westcott, of the Reliant, sir,” his escorting Midshipman announced.
“Aha! Lewrie!” Captain Stephen Blanding said with a glad bark of pleasure and welcome as he came from his sideboard in the dining-coach, cup and sauncer in one hand, and the other out for a cheerful shake. “Heard of you, sir. Good things, all! Welcome aboard my wee barge. Mister Westcott, is it? Welcome aboard to you, as well!”
Blanding was a stocky fellow, no doubt strong as an ox, but giving a roly-poly, aged cherub impression, with his belly girth and his very curly long blond hair, which he still wore clubbed back into a long sailor’s queue, bound with black riband. “The others say they know you well, Captain Lewrie,” Blanding said, waving his tea cup and saucer hand at the other officers seated in the day-cabin. “Captain Stroud of the Cockerel frigate, and Captain Parham of Pylades?”
“Good God above, it is a family reunion!” Lewrie blurted out at the sight of them. William Parham had long ago been one of his Mids aboard the Alacrity gun ketch, a converted bomb, ’tween the wars in the Bahamas. Stroud . . . ?
“We were together in the Adriatic in Ninety-Six, sir,” Captain Stroud more sobrely told him. “I was First Officer in Myrmidon, a—”
“Commander Fillebrowne’s Sloop of War, aye!” Lewrie said, going to shake hands with him warmly, even though he barely recalled him. “I do recall,” he lied. “Congratulations on your command, Captain Stroud. And Cockerel! My first ship in Ninety-Three, as her First Officer. A fine vessel.”
Even if her old captain and all his kin aboard drove us nigh to mutiny and madness! Lewrie recalled to himself.
“And Parham! Look at how you’ve risen since!” Lewrie went on, greeting yet another old shipmate. “And Pylades . . . I’m sure you know that she was with us in the Adriatic, too, with Captain Stroud. Captain Benjamin Rodgers’s old ship, and you surely recall him from the Bahamas, ha ha!”
“Indeed I do, sir!” Parham enthusiastically replied. “Happy to serve with you again, happy indeed. And pray do express my greetings to your good lady when next you write her, and say that I recall her kindnesses to callow young Mids in those days quite fondly.”
“Ah,” Lewrie said, “I . . .” He stumbled as a chill came over the cabins, with Blanding coughing into his fist and “ahemming.”
“Mistress Lewrie was most foully murdered by the French last year, sir,” Blanding told Parham. “By that tyrannical despot Napoleon Bonaparte’s orders to murder Captain Lewrie, here, as well.”
“God, I am so sorry, sir, I didn’t . . . The news of it did not reach me ’til this very instant!” Parham stammered, blushing deeply.
“The bastard,” Parham’s First Officer spoke up.
“Condolences, sir,” Stroud’s First Lieutenant said, and Lewrie gawped to see that that worthy was Martin Hyde, yet another of his Midshipmen from HMS Jester.
“Hyde, by God! I’ve an old friend of yours as my Second Lieutenant . . . Clarence Spendlove,” Lewrie informed him as they greeted each other.
“Spendlove, sir? Aye, I’d admire a chance to come aboard and renew his acquaintance before we sail,” Lt. Hyde said, glowing with delight.
“Well, now I’ve drug you all from your breakfasts, pray allow me to provide one whilst we get further acquainted and I discover to you what this is all about,” Capt. Blanding chearly offered. He introduced Parham’s First Lieutenant, Bilbrey, and his own, Lt. Gilbraith, all round as they took their seats.
There were hot slices of ham—slabs, rather!—there were crisp rashers of bacon, sizzling spiced sausages, even smoked kippers. With all that came fresh eggs, scrambled or fried to individual order, shredded potato hash, and fresh loaves of bread from a shore bakery, cut two fingers thick, offered with a hunk of butter as big as a man’s fist, and four different pots of jam! All sluiced down with coffee or tea, to each officer’s preference!
They reminisced for a time, and it was all quite jolly, sharing memories and hi-jinks of younger days. Modeste’s First Lieutenant, Mr. Gilbraith, mostly followed his captain’s example as a trencherman par excellence, chuckling over others’ “war stories” now and then whilst piling it down as heartily as Captain Blanding did. Stroud, well . . . as Lewrie remembered him, he’d been a drab, much-put-upon figure who made very little impression; a grey sort of fellow of unremarkable expression and wit, or looks.
Two of ’em with but the one epaulet on their right shoulders, Lewrie took note as he ate; less than Three Years’ Seniority, and both Parham and Stroud commandin’ Fifth Rate 32-gunners? Anyone to join us later, I wonder? Or am I t’be second in seniority, in whatever this turns out t’be?
“All stuffed?” Captain Blanding asked at last. “Won’t eat this well where we’re going. Belcher, clear away, then take everyone out on deck for a spell. I’ll call should I have need of you.”
A bit more conversation of the idle sort, as the tablecloth and plates were cleared, and fresh pots of coffee or tea set on the sideboard for their convenience, and the steward and cabin-servants left.
“Now then!” Blanding said by way of beginning, rubbing his hands together with as much eagerness as he’d greeted his first helping of breakfast. In point of fact, Capt. Blanding put Lewrie in mind of Commodore Ayscough, with all his boisterous bonhomie and energetic way. Minus the haggises, boiled mutton, and bag-pipers, of course!
“The Crown’s decided there’s no living with the French, so we’re going back to war. No secret, there. What we’re to do is to seek out, intercept if possible in European waters, but if they slip past us, go in chase of and bring to action a French squadron preparing to sail to the Americas . . . specifically, from Bonaparte’s little puppet Batavian Republic—Holland to good Christians—for New Orleans. Any of us familiar with New Orleans and Spanish Louisiana?”
“I am, sir,” Lewrie piped up, wishing he could let out the buttons of his breeches after such a feast. “I was there once.”
“Excellent!” Captain Blanding barked with delight. “I trust your experience in those waters will prove of eminent use in our endeavour, sir.”
“Why Spanish Louisiana, sir?” Captain Parham
asked, raising one hand like a dutiful student. “I’d think the French would wish to establish a stronger naval presence at Martinique, or Guadeloupe, after we handed those colonies back to them last year, before we place all their coast under blockade once more.”
“Or a new squadron at Cape François, on Saint Domingue. We’d not winkle them out of there without an army,” Lt. Martin Hyde added.
“Sensible conjectures, all,” Captain Blanding congratulated as he stirred sugar into his fresh cup of coffee. “But the fact of the matter is, about two years ago, Napoleon made a secret treaty with the King of Spain to exchange Tuscany, or Etruria, or whichever piss-pot conquest of his in Italy, for the return of Louisiana and New Orleans. Seems the King of Spain has a new brother-in-law with nowhere to hang his crown . . . or needs a crown and a place to hang it suitably grand-sounding to suit his dignity. Bonaparte would get the incredibly rich trade entrepôt of New Orleans, and territory to the west of the United States so vast that no one knows how far it goes.
“Well!” Blanding hooted. “Neither Great Britain nor our republican American cousins would ever stand for that! And even the Corsican half-breed ogre could realise the fact. Yet for a time he did consider building an American empire, and gathered an army in Holland to go take formal possession. This whole past winter, there’s been a General Victor in Holland, with an army of three or four demi-brigades, whatever the Pluperfect Hell those are . . . anyone?”
“My brother-in-law tells me a demi-brigade is about two thousand men, sir,” Lewrie contributed. “With engineers, artificers, and a large artillery contingent to fortify New Orleans and the forts strung down the Mississippi at the major bends. That might be an army as big as ten thousand men. Can’t cram much more than five hundred of them aboard each transport, so that’d be . . . twenty ships, plus escort?”
“Damme, that would mean at least six or eight line-of-battle ships and frigates,” Capt. Parham spoke up. “Mean to say, sir . . . are we all that’s meant to oppose them?”
“Thank the Good Lord, this Victor chap was iced in all Winter and has had foul winds all Spring, during which time the situation has changed,” Captain Blanding was quick to assure them, laughing the thought away. “Even before Easter, anyone could see the war’s renewal, if they paid the slightest bit of attention or read but one newspaper a month! We will not face such a large force. You see . . .” Captain Blanding got as close to the dining table as his girth would admit, hunching bear-like on his elbows as he imparted his news in a softer mutter. “There are sources in Paris, d’ye see what sort I mean? They tell our people who deal in such matters that Bonaparte has given up on his dreams for an American empire and will settle for cash . . . with which to expand his army and navy, and prepare to fight us.
“The French Foreign Minister, Talleyrand, has been negotiating the sale of New Orleans, and all of formerly Spanish Louisiana, to the Yankee Doodles!”
Holy shit on a biscuit! Lewrie thought, stunned; and what will Charité de Guilleri make o’ that, I wonder? Hide a pistol up her bum, get to hand-kissin’ range, and shoot that bastard Bonaparte? Serve her right . . . serve him right, and spare us a sea o’ bloodshed!
“So they’ll still send a squadron to Louisiana, sir?” Parham enquired, puzzled. “And do our . . . sources say how big it is?”
“Much smaller, for certain,” Captain Blanding said, leaning back and making his poor collapsible dining chair creak alarmingly. “Else, Admiralty would not be sending only four ships in pursuit of them. I expect that the French will now use the formal exchange as a pretext for despatching more warships to the West Indies, perhaps even using the suddenly neutral port of New Orleans as a shelter for frigates and privateers. If there are transports, I also expect that they will be sent into Cape François on Saint Domingue to re-enforce what’s left of their army fighting the slave rebellion, poor Devils. Perhaps only one or two of those demi-brigades will sail, with a much smaller escort, which might see a single battalion to New Orleans to make the ceremony of handing the place over all elegant and shiny. Fireworks, cannonades, a saluting volley or three? A band playing ‘La Marseillaise’?” he disparaged with another hearty chuckle. “Then the French warships are free to pursue a guerre du course against our West Indies trade.”
“Excuse me, sir, but the French would find New Orleans not very useful to them, even if it were American, and neutral,” Lewrie pointed out. “The city is over an hundred miles upriver from the mouth of the delta, so the best they could do would be to establish themselves at the Head of Passes and Fort Balise, where the Mississippi flows out to the Gulf through several easily blockaded passes. Fort Balise is a small, weak, and easily defeated water bastion, but once the exchange is done, it’s an American fort. And I doubt our Yankee cousins would let them anchor there or supply them with goods from the city if we’re now at war with France.”
“You’ve seen this Fort Balise?” Blanding asked, intrigued.
“Aye, sir,” Lewrie replied, trying as usual for the proper English “pooh-poohing” modesty but, again as usual, failing badly at it. “That, and the city of New Orleans, in fact. A job of work for some Foreign Office types, a few years ago, in mufti, as the Hindoos say. French Creole patriots who wanted Spain out and France back in, and turned pirate t’finance their scheme, d’ye see? That’s not t’say the Creoles and the pirates and privateersmen still there might not wish t’help the Frogs, but I don’t see it done directly from New Orleans. Covert supplyin’ through the bayous to Barataria, Timbalier, or Terrebonne Bay, or further west out of Atchafalaya or the Cote Blanche Bays. But . . . those are all very shallow waters, sir, barely deep enough for local schooners or small brigs, not corvettes or frigates. And they are bad holding-ground in a blow, with no shelter from the barrier islands. I’d expect one stiff diplomatic note from you, sir, to the new American authorities would force ’em to kick the French out and sit on anyone who’d sell ’em supplies. If Panton, Leslie & Company still does business in New Orleans, we could send a boat to Fort Balise, and a letter upriver, and know which merchant houses are involved within a fortnight . . . then turn ’em in to the local American government.”
“Internment, by God!” Lt. Gilbraith, Blanding’s First Officer, perked up and spoke for the first time since “might you pass me that strawberry jam-pot, sir?” over an hour before. “Do we bottle them up and send that note, the French could not remain forever at anchor in the city or at this bloody fort where the river forks! The Americans could be convinced to enforce the three-day rule and tell the French squadron to sail or surrender their ships on parole ’til the end of the current hostilities. They come out to give us honourable battle or they strike their colours and hang out in New Orleans taverns ’til the Last Trump, and either way, we’ve eliminated them as a threat. Ha?”
“Germane and canny as usual, Jemmy,” Captain Blanding told him, “but dash my eyes! We’ve orders to go looking for a fight, and I’ll be very disappointed should it end that way. I want powder smoke and close broadsides . . . struck colours, prizes, and a slew of dead Frogs!”
To which fierce sentiment they all gave loud, hearty huzzahs.
“Pray God, then, gentlemen,” Lewrie seconded. “We catch them up at sea, before they can take shelter in any French possession or get to the mouth of the Mississippi. I wager we all wish an ocean of Frog blood!”
And huzzahs for that, too!
“How soon might your ships be ready to sail?” Captain Blanding demanded, posing the question to each Captain and First Officer; two days more for Pylades, only one for Cockerel, this very afternoon for Modeste, Gilbraith was quick to announce, and a one-day delay from Lt. Westcott.
“We lack the last of wardroom provisions and live-stock, sir,” Westcott said. “We could fall down to Saint Helen’s Patch whilst we see to all that, if I may suggest, sir?” he said, turning to Lewrie for permission. “A long sail or row for the victuallers, Captain Blanding, but . . . ,” he concluded with a shrug and one of his brief
tooth-baring grins. Lewrie took note, for the first time, that Westcott had a pug nose, almost Irish in its short sweep.
“Chicks!” Blanding boomed aloud. “Chicks and rabbits and game hens. They take much less room in the manger, and much less feed and water than pigs, turkeys, or beef on the hoof. Mature rapidly and are prolific at reproduction.”
“A sack of fat rats t’be let loose in the flour, sirs?” Lewrie suggested, tongue-in-cheek. “Can’t forget t’feed our Midshipmen!”
“I’d imagine we’ve rats enough for a dozen ships by now, sir!” Captain Blanding roared with laughter, slamming a meaty palm on the table top in appreciative mirth. “Saint Helen’s Patch it will be, as quick as dammit, soon as you’re all back aboard your ships. I trust your frigates will prove fast enough to keep up with me, sirs! She is French, Modeste, and very quick for a sixty-four, or so her former captain’s records tell me. She’s six more feet of waterline than the usual sixty-four from our yards. Second one of the same name we’ve taken off the Frogs,” Blanding happily imparted with a wink. “Built at Toulon in Ninety-Seven and lost in the Med a year later. One’d think the French would see her name’s bad luck—for them, at any rate—and drop it for good.”
“Uhm . . . Harbour Drill, sir,” Lewrie had to point out. “We’ve barely had a fortnight to train the landsmen and new-comes. I’d like at least another ten days of it before considerin’ my lads ready for sea, and battle. To get the best speed from Reliant, from all of our ships, and safe and efficient handlin’, well . . .” He trailed off as he took note of the disappointed looks round the table.
“ ‘Growl we may, but go we must,’ Lewrie,” Captain Blanding said with a scowl. “Aye, we’re all short of complete training, but . . . take a page from the French and deem our crews ready enough to get to sea, then work them to perfection on the voyage, what?
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