"Deep breath an' hold her fo' a full minute, Mistah Peel, sah," Andrews solicitously instructed, "an' yah 'hiccin's' be gone."
"Gack!" Peel replied, cheeks bulging and a hand pressed to his mouth, and the good eye floundering about for the welcome sight of any receptacle in which to "cast his accounts."
Christ, don't puke on my deck chequer, Lewrie sourly thought as he held his own breath and watched; you 've already ruined it, enough! He ran out of wind slightly before Peel, and began to gasp, his lungs and chest gulping air like a wash-deck pump sucked spillage.
"Lord God," Peel said with a miserable groan, after a last, and stentorian and prolonged belch. "Think I've been purged!"
"Bettah, though, sah?" Andrews enquired.
"Yes… matter o' fact, I am, thankee. You were sayin'?"
"Huh? Oh. What did we learn," Lewrie reiterated. "And why'd we come to Antigua?"
"Why, we came here to introduce ourselves to the powers that be, Captain Lewrie," Peel told him, head drooping as if suddenly spent by his "dosing" with bitters. "Learn how rife are the Frog privateers… sightings of French men o' war… oh! And where Yankee merchant ships are trading. That's what Sumter's people told me! South o' here, for the most part. Where you find one, you find the other."
"Sharks an' pilot fish," Lewrie seemed to agree.
"But some go into Jacmel," Peel added, finally looking up; and looking as bedraggled as Death's Head On A Mop-Stick. "Didn't mean to reveal that, but… in whisky, Veritas, what?"
"Ah!" Lewrie exclaimed, as if grasping an Eternal Verity or Solid Geometry. "Never mind, then. But, Mister Peel, that means that we must be two ships. Cover Jacmel, up north, or cruise far down along the Leewards, to Aruba and Spanish New Granada. Kill Choundas and his captains with one hand… blockade Rigaud with t'other."
To demonstrate, he held up first the left hand, then the right, and wiggled his fingers… of which he seemed to have twice, perhaps thrice, the requisite number. Rather fascinatin', really, and…
"No, no," Peel carped, as if dealing with a toddler's questions. "Choundas… on Guadeloupe. Yankee merchants… meet up at Dominica. Sumter convoyed dozens of 'em here. Hired stores ship, too, left her there… Prince Rupert Bay. Here, there… maybe up as far as Saint Croix. Goods for Rigaud or L'Ouverture start from Guadeloupe, do you see? Catch 'em… first leg o' their passage. Jamaica Squadron gets the ones headin' for Port-au-Prince or Jacmel… last leg, what?"
"Stop that," Lewrie growled. "God's sake, write it all down." "Write it… now?" Peel gawped. "Can't even spell ink, in…" "Now, aye," Lewrie owlishly insisted. "So one of us remembers it in the mornin'."
"But… dash it, Lewrie! I say…!"
"Else we'll have t'ask the Yankees all over again. Whisky an' all, Mister Peel."
"Oh. Oh!" Peel gasped. "Point… taken. Indeed!" "Well, I'm for bed… can I find it," Lewrie announced, trying to rise of his own volition. "Lots t'do in the morrow. Re-paint all the masts and spars British-fashion… else the forts'll take fright an' shoot us to kindling. Stores t'lade. Naps t'take… oh, thankee, Andrews. Touch t'larboard, is it? Hung from the overhead, now that's cunning. Sways a good deal, I'd imagine. Ah! Aspinall? Do get Mister Peel ink, quill, and paper, will you?" he called out while his Cox'n took his dressing gown and "poured" him into his bed-cot. "And to all a good night."
Peel's muttered grumbles were simply music to his ears as he got comfortable. The windows in the coach-top overhead were open, with a tiny trysail set as a wind-scoop. Lewrie fanned his sheet then let it drop to his waist, savouring the rare nighttime coolness. After a bit of relative silence, marred only by Peel's faint curses and the shit! of his quill nib, Toulon at last decided that peace had been restored, and slunk out of hiding in the starboard quarter-gallery storage, and leaped up to join him, slinging his bulk into the crook of Lewrie's arm and kneading for "pets"… beginning to purr right lustily as his master's hand stroked and wriggled upon his neck and head.
In vino, and whisky, Veritas, Lewrie drunkenly thought on the verge of whirling unconsciousness; and what'd I let slip this ev'nin'? Kindest, if the lad never knows he's my bastard. Half-Indian, Life's already hard enough for 'im. And Caroline never learns it, either! I want ?'reconcile, he'd be the last straw. Damme, but I must've strewed by-blows like dust in a high wind! My "git"! A likely lookin' lad he is, though…
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Shattered! Shattered in knee timbers and futtocks, from upper first futtock to fourth, amidships, along with her ribs! Her graceful stem- choke piece, knee of the head, stemson timbers and apron-including her fore rib pieces and futtocks were shattered.
Once they had stripped Le Bouclier down to a gant-line with only her lower masts standing, with all her ballast, stores, and guns removed, and careened her on the shingly lee-side beach near Basse-Terre, the surveyors from the dockyard had discovered just how grievous and extensive her damage was. The surveyors and the few skilled shipwrights still left on the island of Guadeloupe, after the purging and execution of the Royalists and the suspect, held little hope that the magnificent frigate could be sufficiently rebuilt. Oh, in France, certainement, they said with high shrugs! In the Caribbean, though, there were no stout oak trees, nor were there great, curving timbers of the proper arcs or thickness, nor the right seasoning, and just to replace her outer and inner planking, and lighter damage to carline posts, bulwarks, and rails would exhaust their scant supply of imported oak.
The shipwrights were most apologetic, but there was little they could do for Le Bouclier. Oh, could a ship bear a surveyor and a team of shipwrights to Cuba, or some other Spanish possession, local mahogany might serve for permanent repair materials… but selecting the right-shaped trees, felling them, sawing them, and transporting them back to Basse-Terre would take months. Even then the mahogany would still require months more for proper seasoning and drying.
"Heart-breaking, m'sieur le Capitaine" the master shipwright, and the commissaire of the dockyard, both had said. Then had fled his presence before the expected storm broke.
Heart-breaking, indeed, Capt. Guillaume Choundas thought. What a wondrous frigate Le Bouclier had been, the equal, if not the better, of any "Bloody" warship in the Caribbean-now a useless, lifeless hulk. And damn that salaud Lewrie to the deepest level of Hades.
Just as heart-breaking, though more understandable, was what he heard from his superior, the commissaire civil Victor Hugues. He still had his single frigate, now cruising for American prizes off the coast of the Guyanas, far to the southwest. Did she come in in need of repair, Hugues was certain that Choundas would offer bits and pieces from Le Bouclier, to keep one powerful man o' war able to daunt the "biftecks"… and that Choundas would do so in the proper cooperative spirit, in accord with the ideals of the Revolution!
"You still have two rather fine corvettes, Capitaine Choundas," Hugues had said with a vengeful smirk, "which have yet to put to sea to challenge the 'Bloodies.' Let them sail singly, or as a small squadron. Officers and men off your stricken frigate may re-enforce their crews. Or you may transfer those now idled to my command, and I will put them to good use aboard the several enemy merchant ships / took before your arrival. With cannon from Le Bouclier, I could outfit at least three more raiders to pursue le guerre de course."