"Captain Fleury's ship, though, sir," Peel continued. "Just a general cargo. He'd gotten into Jacmel and back out with sugar and coffee, cocoa, molasses, and rum, and had come back to Basse-Terre in hopes of selling some of it to local merchants, getting an escort from Hugues out to the open seas, past our patrols round Hispaniola, and getting his goods back to France."
"Aye, tight as the French are blockaded, here and there," Lewrie surmised, "that sort of cargo would be worth its weight in gold."
"Even more relishing, sir, Fleury was chartered by Hugues," Peel added, beaming with pleasure. "He and this Captain Fleury were to split the profits. Dare I say, this loss will anger Hugues, no end. And drive another wedge 'twixt Hugues and Choundas."
"Where was their escort?" Lewrie asked.
"None available, since Hugues's own frigate is off far west, on the Spanish Main, searching for American prizes, sir," Peel said, ''and Choundas was so stung by Hugues's criticism that he sent all his ships to sea. Six of one, half-dozen of the other. Either way, Choundas is sure to be held responsible, no matter what he did or didn't do."
"So, does this Haljewin fellow, or this Fleury, know where we'd find Choundas's privateers?" Lewrie demanded, eager to crack on sail, secure his prize with the Admiralty Court not half a day's sail South on Dominica, and start hunting them down.
"Another matter, first, sir," Peel insisted, a finger raised.
"Arrr, Mister Peel!" Lewrie gravelled.
"Impressive, sir, truly," Peel mocked. "No, from what Haljewin says, Choundas is turning the island inside-out, seeking a spy. 'Twas Choundas's conviction that you, sir, are simply too dim to have pulled off our raid, with such an exquisite timing as to estop a vital and secret cargo, and catch their most powerful frigate at the exact moment she was being moved from the harbour at Pointe-a-Pitre to Basse-Terre, without the aid of a spy in our employ. Someone close to Choundas, d'ye see, sir?"
"No, Mister Peel, I don't," Lewrie peevishly groused. "I'm just too dim… d'ye see. Lucky t'know how t'pee without Foreign Office assistance. Damme!"
"My pardons, sir," Peel replied. "Perhaps that could have been better phrased… firstly, that you had, uhm, directions and intelligence from British agents, in contact with a French turncoat, on which to base your actions. Rumours are, though, sir… dear as Guillaume Choundas'd wish to harvest your liver, he holds you to be more lucky than brilliant. He was heard to speak of Mister Zachariah Twigg… rather disparagingly… and was rumoured to suspect that his staff had been,
uhm… compromised, and that Mister Twigg, or someone in Twigg's employ, was pursuing him and dogging his every move, just as he was dogged and confounded in the Far East, then the Mediterranean."
"Oh, the poor, crippled old bastard!" Lewrie chortled. "Damme, is he feelin' persecuted?"
"And looking over his shoulder, now, sir," Peel insisted. "You shook him by the ears, right considerable. Put him off his paces. We have partially succeeded in un-nerving him."
"Well," Lewrie queried, turning to face inward, with his elbows on the cap-rails, and not feeling quite so demeaned any longer. "Does your, uhm… department, bureau, or whatever actually have a spy close to him? Someone in your pay on Guadeloupe?"
"Now, sir," Peel demurred, sniffing. "That would be telling."
"Right, then… be insufferable," Lewrie snapped. "And may ye have much joy of it! Tell me this, then. Now that we've got the evil shit half-confounded, where do I go t'find his ships so I can plague him some more?"
"Gone South, both Fleury and Haljewin suspected," Peel told him. "Bags of Yankee trade down that way, in the Spanish South American possessions, and the Dutch islands. They're half-starved for lack of any Spanish or Dutch ships able to put in with goods. Half-starved of new trade goods, the last three or four years, and half-starved for real by way of foodstuffs on the Dutch isles. Couldn't grow half of what they needed, even before the wars began. With no takers for their formerly valuable exports, 'tis a buyer's market."
"Aye, trust the skinflint Yankees to make a killing off of 'em," Lewrie said with a sneer of distaste natural to any true Englishman of gentlemanly pretensions; money was fine and all, but one could not get caught directly engaged in anything so mundane as "trade" and all the "filthy lucre" that came with it. One hired factors too common to be further sullied; one invested, at arm's reach.
"And the Frogs to make their 'killing' off the Americans, sir," Peel rejoined.
"Not if we can help it," Lewrie vowed. "This suspicion of a spy lark, Mister Peel… think it'd be worthwhile to put a flea in one of our captives' ears, and land Fleury or this Haljewin character ashore, before we get to Dominica? Spin 'em a tale of how we knew they'd sail without escort, and when, and laid in wait for them?"
He waved an idle hand at the shoreline whipping by to windward.
"Well, I don't quite… hmmm," Peel commented, frowning deeply and steepling wide-spread fingers to his lips as he bowed his head in thought. "Must admit, it does entice, does it not, sir. Not exactly in my brief, though. Without approval from Mister Pelham, I'd rather not 'gild the lily,' as it were, with too much finesse."
"Your superior, Mister Grenville Pelham, sir, is a pie-eyed idiot " Lewrie shot back, turning so that only one arm rested on the cap-rails to face him. "One who's hundreds of miles alee, and hasn't any idea of what's transpired since we sailed from Kingston… just what he wished to happen, and that merely in a general way. Do we sit round twiddlin' our thumbs waiting for specific direction from Pelham, we might just as well sail back to English harbour and swing about/ our moorings 'til Epiphany. You sent him a report by fast packet, soon as we entered Antigua harbour, I take it?"
"I did," Peel agreed, "and I am mortal-certain that he would approve every step we have taken so far, and praise our industry…"
"The boy might as well be in London, for all the good he is to us, Mister Peel," Lewrie pressed, "with three or four months 'twixt our correspondence. Now, do we let one or both o' these fools go ashore to tell Choundas how we took 'em, and how 'twas a traitor offered them up on a plate to us, same as his precious frigate, and Haljewin's cargo was, it'll have him tearing his hair out by the roots. You know how brutal Choundas is… recall what Twigg surely told you about him at that long meeting you had before you sailed out here? His 'charming' little… diversions? Like child rape, child buggery, making people suffer as he takes his pleasure, worse than that Marquis de Sade sonofabitch of theirs? Aye, he's most-like got fucking and torture as equal partners in his head, by now. Most-like gets a cock-stand at the smell of hot irons and melted lead.
"Most-like set himself up a dungeon and a torture chamber, soon as he lit out here. Might've been his first priority for all we know,' Lewrie argued with impatient haste as the lee port of Basse-Terre loomed up, and the tiny islets of the Saintes could be made out before the bows; time, geography, and the Trade Winds were stealing any opportunity to fetch-to and send Fleury and Haljewin ashore, before they were too far Sou'west of Guadeloupe, and spend hours beating back. To drop under the horizon, then return to land captives would be too suspicious a move, but to drop them off now would appear natural.
"He's a vicious beast, certainly Captain Lewrie, but…" Peel attempted to counter.