A King`s Commander - Dewey Lambdin

CHAPTER

10

"Signal is down, sir!" Spendlove shouted.

"Maintain course, Quartermaster," Lewrie ordered. "And God help the French. It's going to be a lovely day. What little joy of it they'll have. Buggered 'em, by God!"

"If only we were in on the buggering, sir." Knolles laughed.

It was, indeed, a lovely morning, for late August in the Ligurian Sea. There was a noticeable swell, now and then the hint of some foamy chop to the folding wave tops, and a decently brisk breeze for a change. All under a brilliant blue sky, wisped with benign clouds.

Fremantle's Inconstant led, breaking away westward, accompanied by the Tartar brig to cover the westernmost small town of Languelia, in the Bay of Alassio. Meleager and Speedy went more easterly, to tackle one of the warships at anchor, what looked to be a French corvette. While Nelson in Agamemnon, being handled like a frigate instead of a tired sixty-four-gunner, Southampton and Ariadne charged directly for the clutch of merchant ships.

Jester stood on, tail end of the informal battle line that had approached the coast, to remain offshore as the seaward guard for the rest, as they achieved their victory. She stayed on course, alone.

" 'Least we'll be in-sight, sir," Buchanon grumbled. "Share in the take."

"There is that, Mister Buchanon," Lewrie smirked. "Though, we could wait till hell freezes over before the Prize Courts approve those shares. Easy money, today. Ah, well."

No sign of Guillaume Choundas, either, Lewrie was more than happy to note, which partly explained his sense of content. Rumor had it that "Le Hideux" had a corvette as his flagship, and there were two of them anchored in Alassio Bay this moment, caught napping and facing the heavier twelve-pounder guns of Southampton, Inconstant, and Meleager, those crushing heavy guns aboard Agamemnon's lower deck. If he was there in Alassio Bay, and someone else stopped his business, then… Facing the wily Frenchman, who'd had the Devil's own luck, was someone else's joy, and Lewrie wished them well of it. Ever since Twigg had come aboard with his disturbing news, Lewrie had felt a distinct twanging of nerves.

Only sheer, dumb luck had saved Lewrie's bacon in the Far East, when he'd gone up against Choundas before; only desperate derring-do, and neck-or-nothing chance had kept him alive. Why, the bastard would have slain me, if I hadn't kicked him in the "wedding tackle," Lewrie thought with a queasy feeling. Could one divide a single second… that was how close he had been to being spitted on the man's sword! A normal foe, now… but Choundas? Again? he shivered. Sorry, but the Navy don't pay anyone near enough to tackle that clever fiend!

He raised his telescope to watch, glad to be an observer, as the squadron stood into the bay, creating as much confusion and fear aboard the French convoy as a fox might among the chickens. His lips curled in silent delight. They'd made it to Alassio, the destination Twigg and Drake had discovered; dropped their "hooks" and prepared to carry their cargoes ashore, certain that the British squadron was far away to the west. On that shore, he could see tiny antlike figures in the dark blue-and-white uniforms of the French Army, the colors adopted from their old second-line National Guard. Thousands of Frogs, foot, horse, and perhaps some light artillery. Rather a lot of cavalry, he surmised; or draught animals assembled to tow the heavy wagons that the convoy's goods would have filled?

Cannon fire, now; blooms of smoke staining the oaken sides of Agamemnon and the rest. Even upwind, the slamming and drumming boom of artillery was lung-rattling. Some scattered return fire from shore, or from the armed ships that had escorted them in. For show, Lewrie thought smugly; a broadside or two so their captains could claim that resistance had been offered, but then…

Neither of the French corvettes appeared to be trying to hoist sail, or save their anchors. The dull glint of iron upon their forecastles. Cutting cable? Yet, so slowly, so raggedly.

"He's not here," Lewrie muttered, lowering his glass, and gnawing on the lining of his mouth in disappointment that Choundas had not been caught with his trousers down. And worry. That he was still out there, somewhere. And that Twigg would arrange for him to fight him. "Damme, I could have thought…"

"Let this be a lesson to you, Hainaut," Le Hideux grumbled, as he awkwardly paced his quarterdeck in bleak fury. "Never believe what is offered to you too easily."

"Citizen Pouzin thought it was authentic, so…" the lanky midshipman shrugged. He looked a little better. The British had been so good as to present him with a pair of slop trousers, which fit better than his old castoff breeches. A gift, that civilian clerk had told him.

"Ah, Citizen Pouzin, oui." Choundas scowled, lifting the good corner of his mouth in a brief grin. "So easily gulled, that one. I will make sure Paris knows of his gullibility. Should he have gotten the timing wrong, we sail for nothing. But, if this is a ploy to expose the convoy, then he will pay for it."

So many places to cover; Nice, Sam Remo, Cagnes, Antibes, and Cannes. Martin had yet to send him his needed ships, so he could not hope to cover them all. Nor hope to stand out to sea, but not so far out that he could not espy signal fires to alert him where the British might strike. Nor hope to confront them in equal combat, ship against ship, either.

He glanced at Hainaut, wondering…

Never believe what is offered me too easily, either, Guillaume Choundas frowned. So quickly exchanged, bearing his cunningly gathered information about the British squadron. And the greatest news of all! That Jester, and that bastard Lewrie who'd maimed him, were one and the same!

When the British did not appear on the horizon, where he'd been assured they would, he'd begun to fret. First in anger, that a chance for revenge was delayed, that he'd have to wait to capture Jester, and carve her smirking bastard Englishman into stew meat, as he had lusted to do these past nine years! So close at hand, yet…!

Anger had cooled, replaced by trepidation; that he'd been told a lie, a cunning English lie, that someone was in league with them and had passed the lie on. Who would wish him humiliated? Pouzin? Yes, that could be it. He'd seemed so anxious to know the date of sailing, so he could make his arrangement, he'd said, but that could have been his way of getting what he needed to know, which he'd told the enemy! There might never have been a smuggled letter from Genoa, at all! It could have been Pouzin's fabrication.

Alan Lewrie, though, Choundas fumed in silence, clump-shuffling about the deck, oblivious for once to his crippled state. Lieutenant Alan Lewrie… Commander Alan Lewrie… Lewrie, Lewrie, Lewrie. Hate him! In the days since Hainaut had returned with that startling revelation of who his foe was, how close he was to vengeance, that name and what he wished to do to the person bearing that name had become almost a litany, like what he had once mumbled in rote duty over rosary beads.

But now, at sea, where a cooler head could prevail, he had begun to wonder about the timing of that revelation. Why now? Just before a convoy, a vitally important convoy…

It was late August, almost September. Soon, the weather would turn, the gales arise, cutting seaborne supplies by half, even without a British squadron on the Riviera. The first snows would fall in those mountain passes, and soldiers of both sides would go into winter quarters, unable to wage war until spring, bogged or snowbound.

To use me, he sneered, at last, when a blinding epiphany struck! To delude me, disarm me… to blind me with the brightness of revenge! Someone on the opposing side, someone incalculably clever, had revealed this to me, through Hainaut and perhaps even through Pouzin. Waiting, watching… being fed information by traitors and greedy shop clerks… biding his time until this could be used against me.

La Vengeance now stood on East, racing with every scrap of canvas spread aloft, bounding and soaring, cleaving foam with a sibilant, spiteful hiss, like an adder aroused and dangerous, warning everything in sight to get out of striking distance. She stood on alone, though. The rest of his patchwork squadron was too weak, too slow, too thin-scantlinged for what she might discover. The winds had not been that good, the last few days; the convoy and escort force could still be caught up, if they'd found scant winds or foul. There was a chance that Capitaine de Frйgate Bayard, the too-handsome beast, would use his innate cleverness, and put in each night in a snug harbor, not daring an evening passage on the open sea. Would he be that clever? Choundas devoutly wished. One of the rare ones, clever and pretty, was Bayard.

Yet, how many tiny seaports had they passed, getting closer to Alassio, and no sign of them. It didn't mean that they were really a target, Choundas could tell himself. Perhaps the British didn't know of their presence. That everything would turn out fine.

Diano, to larboard and now astern. Only a few miles more, once around the headland that formed the spine of the western heights of the Bay of Alassio. No sign of any enemy warships further out to sea. A thought did cross his mind, that it was a trap; that whoever that very clever fellow was in the British camp, they'd passed the tale, knowing he would do this-rush to the scene, to assure himself. It made the right sort of sense, to Choundas. Who was more important to the war effort than he? With all modesty, he could not think of anyone else whose loss would do more harm to the cause of the Revolution. It was not hubris, that awareness; it was merely his studied opinion, after coolly weighing the facts, and the rest of the participants. Lewrie. Would Lewrie be there? Would anyone? As bait, or…

"Artillery!" sang out a watch officer. "I hear gunfire!"

"Hй, merdel" Choundas groaned, biting his lip in anguish.

"Sail Ho!" Sang out the foremast lookout. "Dead on the bow!"

He could hear it himself, now. Stuttering. Dull brumbies. A single flat bark. An irregular cannonading, around the headlands. His convoy! The "L'Anglais"-the "Bloodies"-were in Alassio Bay!

"Sail is ship-rigged!" the lookout cried again. "Standing out to sea… larboard tack!"

"Her flag!" Choundas howled aloft, cupping his hands.

"Corvette!" the lookout shouted. "Warship!"

"Her flag! Her damned flag!" Choundas screeched again.

"C'est l'Anglais!"

"Timonier, helm down a point, alee," Choundas snapped, turning clumsily. "Close-haul to windward. Brail up courses, and chain-sling the yards. We will fight her. Drum us to Action!"

"Sail Ho!"

"Where, away?"

"One point off th' star-b'd bows!"

Lewrie scaled the mizzen shrouds on the starboard side, telescope in hand, so he could see for himself. A ship, a proper ship, he thought; not one of those lateen-rigged locals. She was bows-on to Jester, aiming directly at her under a press of sail, flinging a great mustache of sea foam about her forefoot and cutwater, her arrogantly thrust bowsprit and jib boom cocking up and down as she rocked. No more than a league to leeward, standing on nor'east close-hauled, and about four miles offshore. The strange ship's courses, tops'ls, t'gallants, and royals were cusped to the wind, their leaches almost edge-on to him.