"Je ne sais pas… vos bursars wear rouge?"
"Any damn' thing they want, they're not really Navy officers," Lewrie lied, striking a breezy air. "Aye, red's their colour. Waist-coat's red, too. Plain blue coat, with cloth-covered buttons…"
"Say somezing… M'sieur Bursar Scott," the dragoon demanded. "Parlez-vous francais?"
De Crillart shook his head in the negative, shrugging, with a hopeless grin at the dragoon officer.
"Somezing in English, m'sieur?"
"Yes, Mister Scott," Lewrie prompted as well, turning to him in desperation. "Say something in Royal Navy, Mister Scott."
De Crillart frowned, cocking his head to one side. It was his life he held in his hands, and the lives of his gunners, as well. And Alan's… once they found he'd been lying like a rug, and resented it.
"Arrh, matey," Charles pronounced carefully. "Aye, aye, cap'um."
Alan stifled such a monumental snort of stupefaction, he felt his sinuses were about to burst Where the hell'd he learn that, he wondered? And why'd he dredge it up now1? God, what a
honid choice!
"You may have a bit of bother understanding him, you see," Alan sped to explain, trying to keep a straight face, no matter how hellish dangerous it was. "Mister Scott is a real Scot. A Highland Scot. Can't understand him meself, half the time, all his 'arrrhhin' and 'burrin.' "
"God-damn-r'right, cap'um," de Crillart added. "Blud-dy." Oh, God, don't gild the lily, not when…! Alan winced. He was interrupted by the most wondrous sound he'd ever heard in his entire life-the sudden spatter of musketry! Everyone jerked their heads to the source, to espy a rank of shakoed heads on the tall bluff above the beach, on the coast road. Lance tips winked beyond on the hill, bared sabres flashed, and a trumpet sounded. They wore goldish yellow jackets with white facings. Spanish cavalry, by God!
Bullets spanged off the shingle, sparks erupted crisp as struck gun-flints, horses reared and neighed, and men cried out in alarm, to arm themselves or to mount quickly.
Buonaparte and his aides mounted. Lewrie looked longingly for his sword; the bastard still had it. The dragoon captain reached for the hilt of his sabre. Lewrie shoved him, punching him in the face.
"Runnforritt!" he screamed, bolting away, dragging Spend-love by the elbow. "This wayy!" as he headed for shelter under the bluffs up the cove, under the guns of the cavalrymen. His unshod right foot took terrible punishment on sharp-edged stones and gravel, every lumpy rock he stubbed on made him wince. But it was better than a bullet in the back, or a sword cut. "Run, damn yer eyes! Run!" he panted.
There were shrieks, as a lancer got his tip into the back of a fleeing sailor, another piteous cry of " Madre de Dios, noo, ahhhl…." that ended in a rabbity screech as a Spanish bombardier was hewn down by a dragoon's sword, cut open from belly to breastbone. And French cries, music to Lewrie's ears, as men were spilled from their saddles by ball, or stirrup-dragged by panicked chargers over the rough beach.
They reached the cliffs, gasping with effort. Lewrie turned to see the French cantering south, in fairly good order, heading for the far side of the arrow-shaped bluff below the beach, where there was a way up and off; steeper than the one they'd descended. He spotted Lieutenant Colonel Buonaparte on his dapple-grey, patiently waiting as his lancers thundered up the draw past him, braving long-range musket fire as his dragoons formed an open-order vedette to screen the retreat.
Buonaparte made his grey rear, stuck his arm in the air to wave the captured sword. He was smiling, damn his eyes!
"I'll get it back, you bastard!" Lewrie howled in his loudest quarter-deck voice, jabbing a finger at the sword. "Je prendre mon…! One day, I'll find you! Je trouvez-vous! Je prendre de vous, mon…"
Damme, what's Frog for "sword"?
"Espece de salaud!" he roared instead, his voice echoing off rocks and hills. "Va te faire foutre!"
Scabbarded, Buonaparte flipped the sword so the hilt was in his fist-raised it to his face in mock salute, laughed as his horse did another impressive rear. He may have had no English, and Lewrie might not have had anything close to fluent French-but he thought he understood well enough. With a saw at the reins, the colonel was gone in a moment, up the draw and out of sight.
"Seflores, pronto!" a Spanish cavalry officer directed, skidding his mount to a sand-strewing halt near them. "Ingles? We go! Muy pronto! Darse! Hurry up!"
Not another language lesson, not two in one day, Lewrie sighed. The officer kicked an elegantly booted foot out of the near-side stirrup, reached down to offer him a hand as his men trotted up to aid the rest with spare French mounts, whose owners lay crumpled on the sands, or the mounts of Spanish soldiers who'd been spilled trying to rescue them. Alan hoisted his foot, reached for the saddlehorn, and hung on as the officer spurred his charger back up the draw to the Hieres road.
"A minute sooner," he muttered ungraciously beside his saviour. "Just a bloody minute sooner, thankee very much!"
Nothing could have spared him the shame of losing his ship, of course. But to see that swaggerin' little bastard ride off with his sword in his hands…
His very honour!
Hic portus inquit mihi territat hostis has
aeies sub nocte refert, haec versa Pelasgum
terga vides, meus hic ratibus qui pascitur
ignis
.
Lo! Here the enemy is affrighting our
harbour, and here beneath the cover of
night he renews the battle, and here,
see! the backs of the Pelasgians in rout;
this fire that devours the rafts is mine.
– Valerius Flaccus
Argonautica, Book II, 656-59
Chapter 1
He dined alone, dispiritedly, picking at his supper and pushing it about his plate more than he ate. As thoroughly blockaded by land as Toulon now was, there wasn't that much food any longer, and prices had gone through the roof. At least the wine was still good, and cheap.
There were few other diners in the restaurant, half of them officers in strange uniforms, proud with gold or silver lace, sprigged in ornate, gewgawy appurtenances which, no matter their martial gaudiness, still made their wearers look like scared shopkeepers. Sardinians, Neapolitans, Redmontese, Spanish… Lewrie was one of the rare British officers not out on the outposts. Bleak as his mood was, the others seemed even more morose. Large liquid Don and Dago eyes, aswim with fear or self-pity, hesitant gestures, where before they chopped at the air or waved their arms in braggadocio. Soft, sibilant mutterings of defeated conversation, much shrugging and sighing… stopping occasionally, as the drumfire of the artillery barrages increased in tempo or volume. Or a shell crashed into the town itself.
They'd been doing that a lot lately, the Frogs; lofting mortars into their own city, five or six rounds a day. Now they had the range. Kettledrums pounded, the candle flames wavered on his table, and glassware softly tinkled as siege guns tore loose upon Fort Malbousquet, and Fort Malbousquet responded. Worried looks were shared among the foreign officers, bleak little giggles in attempts at gallows humour.
And the French… pausing for a moment, stoic faces frozen in what they called sang-froid. Damnit, but the French always had le mot juste, the perfect word or phrase, he sneered. Alan chewed on a slice of goose and swirled the cabernet sauvignon in his large wine glass, studying his wine through the stuck-in-a-bottle candle flame. Studying the Frogs, the other diners. Pere et maman, with their children. Old aristocrats still clinging to silks and satins, successful merchants in well-cut wool coats and waist-coats, the very image of moderate wealth and the latest styles. And so few of them still wearing their Bourbon-white cockades. The last few weeks they'd slowly shed them, like oak trees giving up their final leaves to the winter winds. On the outskirts of Toulon, it was said, the new style was red-white-and-blue Republican colours. And in the middle of town, there were hastily chalked or painted threats on walls, fresh each morning, no matter the patrols. Long, red-wool stocking caps were seen now in public, sported by sour-faced, hard-eyed commoner "patriots"… the sans culottes. Swaggering bullies who dared show the Tricolour, and glared at those who didn't, as if memorising faces and names. Later, they seemed to forebode. We'll know who you are… later.
"M'sieur weesh?" his waiter asked, pointing to his half-eaten and bedraggled supper. An ubiquitous omelet, only two eggs per customer now, a last gamy, oily slice of overcooked goose, and a heel of bread aswim in the fats of half-burnt, half-cooked pommes de terre escallopes.
"Non, merci," he replied sarcastically.
"Plus de vin?"
"Non. L'addition," Lewrie sighed. Nearly a shilling it cost, for what he'd have paid no more than four pence back home. And kicked the cook's arse for ruining it. He got to his feet, gathered up his hat and cloak, and departed.
The others watched him leave in silence, daunted by the grim look on the naval officer's face, the unspoken sneer of disgust he bore when he deigned to glance in their direction. Who is he to sneer at us, they seemed to say… a "pinch-beck" Anglais in a ragged, too-large coat, in slop-trousers instead of a gentleman's knee breeches? Worn old Hessian boots, a plain blue civilian cloak, a hat that had seen a previous war… and that pitiful excuse for a sword!
It was cold that night, cold and icily clammy, with a light wind off the sea. Street lanterns wore haloes of mist, and it smelled like it might rain before morning. Lewrie wrapped himself in the too-large and tatty coat purchased off another officer, grateful its lapels buttoned over each other. Until he received his quarterly draft from Courts', he was forced to live on Navy pay, and a borrowed forty pounds-half of that gone already for the hat, cloak and a mediocre smallsword of dubious temper, the best of a table piled with second-hand blades of even more uncertain character at a civilian shopkeeper's bargain sale.
He walked downhill towards the harbour and the basin, listening to the drumming of the guns. The batteries on des Moulins and Reinier were blazing away, round the clock now. The Little Road had all but been abandoned. So fierce was their fire that no line-of-battle ship or floating battery could dare it for very long.
The streets were suspiciously empty of strollers or late shoppers, even of whores and Corinthians. And where almost every shop window or appartement above had been open and ablaze with light, they were now dark and shuttered, or out of business "temporarily." A waggon creaked down the street, drawn by four heavy dray horses. Moans of wounded could be heard within-a hospital waggon bearing the day's detritus to Hopital de la Charite north of town, outside the walls. A half mile from the site of the latest disaster of two weeks before.
The Republicans had massed a battery on the Heights d'Arenes west of Fort Malbousquet, twenty guns or better, and had begun a deluge of shellfire against that most important strongpoint, the key to the western side. Dundas and O'Hara had marched out next day on 30 November with 2,200 men: Spanish, Neapolitan, Sardinian, 400 of the few French Royalist troops, along with 300 of their precious British; a majority of the mobile reserves who weren't tied to fixed positions, the best of their mediocre, ill-matched lot.
